Member Article

5 Tips for Manufacturing Automation

More often than not, manual means inefficient. Almost every process that your team carries out manually can be automated through ERP systems.

“Previously, we produced 40 chairs in an hour. Now, we run up to 120 chairs in an hour.“ Kevin Hall, Head of International Business Systems Development, Herman Miller

The benefits of automation:

1. Lower error rates
2. Consistent quality
3. Faster operation
4. Machines and computers don’t take breaks.

Yes, there’s a cost to automation. But that cost is quickly offset by the benefits of boosted productivity, reduced wastage and improved customer relationships. If you can’t measure your results, you can’t improve them - so the greater visibility and control manufacturing software gives you is invaluable.

“Less than 50 per cent of companies claim to be very confident in the quality of their data.“

Tip 1: Get everything talking

Integration is the profit engine for manufacturing automation. When your machines, processes and people all start talking to one another, they become more than individually spinning cogs in your business machine. Interconnectivity pulls them together and the output is greater efficiency.

What does integration look like?

1. Visual scheduling displaying what is going on where.
2. Automated warnings of actual or potential problems.
3. Task lists and instructions communicated through touch screens.
4. Machine weight or count quantities captured electronically, eliminating manual recording
5. Line-side stock arriving Just in Time.

“Being able to do things in real time makes people think differently about the problem.“ Andreas Wiengend, Director, Social Data Lab

Manufacturers were asked in an IDC survey “What could be done to improve decision-making capability?“

The response:

• Speed up business processes (85%)
• Access real-time information (61%)
• Improve collaboration (60%).

Tip 2: Bin the paper

Eliminate the time wasted searching through files or photocopying documents by scanning the originals. Scanned documents can be accessed at the point when they are needed, and only when they are needed. They don’t get dog-eared or dirty and they’re easier to keep up-to-date.

Save time by scanning:

1. Original designs
2. Product specifications
3. System manuals and instruction sheets
4. Customer reference documents.

Tip 3: Escape from the mouse

Touch and voice technology are making the mouse and keyboard redundant, especially in the factory and warehouse. Touch screens literally put the information workers need at their fingertips. Essential information can be permanently displayed, with control and inputs swiftly accessed through tapping the screen. Unlike paper, touch screens update automatically.

Where a touch screen beats a mouse:

1. Easy to keep clean
2. Takes up less space
3. More intuitive to operate.

“In a factory setting, dust and dirt from the process get into keyboards, which then can fail.“ Bob Meads, president of system integrator iQuest

“The key advantage of touchscreen monitors is that they act as both an input and output device with a graphical user interface.“ Lawrence Liang, Advantech Industrial Automation Group

Voice recognition technology is already delivering huge productivity gains in warehouses as picking operations go paperless.

Tip 4: Keep the customer informed

The customer is arguably the most important ingredient in your manufacturing process. By increasing the visibility of the stage their order is at, it’s easier for them to plan and feel in control. Properly integrated manufacturing software gives you the capability to automatically inform customers when key stages in the production process have been reached via emails or web portals.

“Ineffective or inadequate IT is emerging as the single most critical barrier to mastering complexity.“ In Pursuit of Operational Excellence: Accelerating Business Change Through Next -Generation ERP, IDC Manufacturing Insights

What automatic updates do for customers:

1. Build trust
2. Increase confidence
3. Make it easier to do business with you
4. Keep them coming back.

Tip 5: Take fast delivery of the facts

To run a complex operation efficiently requires the making of well-informed and timely decisions, and lots of them. When data is old or incomplete, it impairs your ability to make the best choices. Real time information removes much of the uncertainty and delay from production management. Workers at all levels receive the facts they need, when they need them.

How real time information pushes up profits:

1. Cuts stock turns
2. Reduces wastage
3. Raises productivity
4. Improves customer service
5. Builds customer loyalty.

However quickly and efficiently machines work, some decisions demand the experience and skills of a human operator. That’s where real time information, as part of an integrated manufacturing system, makes a difference - it allows you to focus resources where they add the maximum value, and deliver the biggest contribution to profitability.

Do you have any tips to add? Use the comments space below…

Discover more helpful tips from this handy eguide: ’Don’t Put It Off! Five Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Defer Your ERP Project’. Simply copy and paste this link http://bit.ly/ERPprojects into your browser to read.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Bywater .