Capture actionable information from your shopfloor
So you have just implemented an ERP system that automates your organization-wide business transactions, reduces a lot of paperwork and also helps with reports at different levels of aggregation. However, when it comes to the shop floor, is your ERP capturing what goes on behind the transactions? To find out the answer, you can start by asking your business the following question-Have there been improvements in the three key elements of your OEE- namely, Quality, Performance and Availability?
Most of the current ERP systems do not meet the requirements of real time data gathering and analysis that a complex manufacturing environment requires. The ERP vendors have started providing some sort of MES tools for the shop floor in the recent years, however, these one size fits all solution are suitable for use mostly in less complex manufacturing environments. Manufacturing across industries are different in terms of process complexity, product volume, product mix etc.. As such, you need to first identify specific shop floor data gathering, analysis and executing tools available in the market for your industry and then figure out a way of getting those to talk to your ERP system. Some of these tools might have in-built interfaces for your specific ERP package, otherwise you need to invest to create those touchpoints between your ERP and the tools to get the data flowing between them.
How will such investment help in improving the operational parameters?
Quality: Real time data analysis can provide instant feedback to supervisors on areas where faults might be happening so control actions can be taken immediately. It can also provide real time feedback and analysis to the operators on the floor regarding causes of errors empowering them to take corrective actions.
Availability: Availability of equipment is often a measure of net operative time or what percentage of time the machine is available when it is needed. Real time data gathering and analysis can quickly identify if any machines are down and suggest if the work needs to be routed to an alternate machine or work area. In case of demand- driven plants, supervisors can look at the demand realtime and the load situation in the shop floor and commit additional orders on the fly.
Performance: It is a measure of standard quantity produced within the available operative time. One way of keeping the performance up is to eliminate bottlenecks that might arise due to a constrained machine, an equipment breakdown or unmanageable load. Real time data gathering and analysis can suggest alternate options to a supervisor for eliminating bottlenecks, rerouting work dynamically from a broken down machine to a different one, or distributing loads across machines to get the work done. These factors allow circumventing unwarranted halts in the production process thereby improving the performance.
So what kind of tools should you look for? You will broadly need tools that satisfy some or all of the following requirements
Gather real time data from the shop floor including moves, issues, reworks, scraps, loads etc.
Convert those data into actionable items
Dispatch those actions to different users- supervisors and operators at their proper summary levels.
An ERP helps in capturing basic transactions, while a real time shop tool will help in capturing more granular information and analyzing them to provide instantaneous actionizable suggestions thus making the shop floor more adaptable to constantly changing load situations and changing customer demand. Investing in such tools for running the shop floor and integrating them with your ERP will get you where the finest manufacturing organizations have already travelled.
