In the past, production has been considered the “logistic Cinderella”. Its characteristics like being loud, dirty and typically a source of trouble, turn it in an unlucky necessity. The entire Board of Directors dismisses it just as an activity to ward off and quieten. It’s an outsourcing business.
Today its story will change! Productivity is going to rise its EBITDA thanks to new technologies and what IIotT (Industrial Internet of Things) has done. That’s way company’s management is so interested in data production. But, sadly, they knock on the door in the wrong way: the Board of Directors doesn’t like spreadsheets. With this type of tool, it’s necessary a large amount of manual inputs that will lead to duplication of data and to high costs that will affect production, above all.
The good news it’s that a higher reliability of data has mitigate collection’s costs. Revamping, new investments and a certain democracy of sensor’s costs have made it possible and easier to collect data in real-time.
What’s the goal of collecting data?
Top managers, if you don’t know what are the right questions to ask to the data oracle, it’s okay. It’s will be easier after a while.
To made them useful it’s necessary to connect, to integrate and to relate each other the collected data with production’s events, that are not automatized.
Nobody wants these connections to be manual. The task must be automatic. You just don’t want to call some external data analyst.
By studying in detail manufacturing process, you can find a lot of opportunity to give an automatic connection to data, but it’s important to maintain an overall overview. This task, it’s not an executive manager’s business because at his level process’s details are missing.
Even production manager is not the right person, because he has too much detail and can’t see an overview of the situation.
The prefect skills’ combination arises from team work, eventually lead by a coach that is “third person” not driven by aims of the others participants.
His goal will be to imagine production process like a stream data producer, a collection of fluid signals, liquid and without interruptions. Something more like a sound instead of a database that collect measures and samples.
It’s a process that a lot of people consider impossible because shop floor doesn’t want to share data. But Data sharing can be trade with a lot of innovative tools that will make easier operators’ work and at the same time they will be able to collect data without any additional work.
Managers need to measure performances, production capability and products’ quality from data production. They will give in exchange better operation procedures, automation technologies updates, investments in production’s equipment and growth of operators’ competences.
A widely solution is typically to connect production equipment with the ERP systems, with the aim to create a continuous improvement on the ERP application. But in our experience having this enormous amount of data will lead to chaos, to a futile and unintelligible buzz.
A better solution is to connect all production equipment with a MES/MOM system to synchronize the execution process with planning, quality controls and maintenance. This will give you the chance to relate them with shop-floor’s events so that you can better understand them..
At that point, it will be possible to analyze them and obtain the key factors to measure production and to put into practice the improvements. It will be clearer which question to ask and where to focus the analysis.
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