Growing customer needs would involve technology advancements to transform all industries and Manufacturing processes is necessary as per current market scenarios and situations for the business opportunities, faster delivery and customer satisfaction.
With too many challenges in manufacturing sectors looking for solutions, the industry is looking for technology innovations with the help of digitalization transformation within the manufacturing process which will help improve shop floor productivity, and growth and ensure delivering a promise to gain.
Following are some common challenges every manufacturing floor faces during the manufacturing process.
- Lack of shop floor visualization
- Job allocations by supervisor manually
- Getting real-time data to monitor utilization of resources
- Unplanned machine downtime and maintenance costs
- Employee safety management system
Top manufacturing companies are looking for a change in their manufacturing process with the help of robust technologies like mobile app development, and Human Machine Interface which will capture data from shop floor operators (end users) and have accelerated their productivity by at least 10x than it was before.
Still not convinced? The sections below will help you understand the impact of Digital Manufacturing and what Digital Manufacturing means for manufacturers.
What is Digital Manufacturing?
Any factory that can be automated thoroughly and has the ability to self-optimize and improve its performance with the help of digital solutions is termed Digital Manufacturing. Digital Manufacturing is one of the advanced technologies used along with proper planning and Auto-generated MIS reports to help factories improve their performance with self-optimization.
Are automation and digital manufacturing the same? True or false.
It’s false. Not all automation can be called digital manufacturing. While automation can be as simple as transforming a paper-based process into digital, digital manufacturing involves a lot of processes like technology implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of data to achieve improvements. Digital manufacturing involves more than one or more technology while automation can be attained using a single app or solution.
Your competitors are already there, where are you?
Digital solutions have transformed the way shop floors perform their day-to-day activities and I have named a few below that are changing productivity.
- Shop floor digital solution (automates shop floor planning, shop floor operations, manpower allocation, with real-time data monitoring)
- Preventive maintenance solutions will prevent unplanned machine downtime and maintenance costs also.
- Employee health safety management solution ensures employee safety while working with the machines on the shop floor.
Let’s look into how these solutions work and help to improve the shop floor operations smoothly.
Shop Floor Planning & Dashboard
This can be achieved by empowering the operators/supervisors with the HMI (Human Machine Interfacing) devices to machines.
Digitizing the machines would help operators record the data in real-time through an HMI. Automatic updating of the data to the ERP system using the HMI is seamless and any operator can perform this job on the go. This will help to execute the MRP (Material Requirement Planning) and the projected date for the SKUs will be achieved on your screen in advance. Based on this data system will provide a forecasted date for the Finished Goods which you have to dispatch to your customer.
Also, the top management will be powered by an interactive dashboard to monitor real-time operations and necessary information to make decisions faster.
The second step is to assign tasks dynamically to operators for improved productivity.
Daily Production Report digitization
Similarly, the supervisors can assign tasks to operators using the system. They are able to check load balance for the work centers, and employees and can change schedules on the go. Also, they can change scheduled tasks which were assigned by the system if any employee is on leave.
With everything digitized, monitoring the complete daily production report assigned against each and every operator becomes super easy for any supervisor and saves a lot of time for the company which will save the cost of operations as well.
Above mentioned automation steps definitely increase the efficiency of the labor and overall productivity for the shop floor.
The third step would be to utilize the machines efficiently to avoid costly machine repairs.
Preventive maintenance
Unplanned downtime could be more costly as it involves instant repair and higher costs need to be paid to start production once again.
This is also a big challenge that most companies are facing nowadays.
Preventive maintenance, integrated with the ERP system will help to monitor the devices simply, efficiently, and cost-effectively.
The preventive maintenance schedule provides notifications via Email or SMS on time so that it would not miss any maintenance activity.
Simply you would be able to prevent unplanned downtime with proper scheduling in the system for preventive maintenance. This will also help you utilize your machines efficiently rather than frequent maintenance or unplanned maintenance. The data also helps you to measure the overall equipment efficiency (OEE).
OEE Formula
The fourth step would be ensuring employee safety on the shop floor.
Employee safety management system
Another major task for employees within a manufacturing unit is safety while handling machines. Performing routine checklists for the machines that are very sensitive on a day-to-day basis and reporting any incidents manually is a very tedious task for the employees.
Ensuring employee safety is a must for the manufacturing unit to help and motivate them to deliver the best.
With an employee safety management application within the system, carrying out equipment checks regularly is simple. Besides, the employees can also raise incidents, machine defects, malfunctions, and report observations to the supervisors and higher authorities on the go and on time to get the condition of the equipment to plan further.
So, automating your day-to-day shop floor activities/operations with the aforementioned solution(s), would help your business accelerate productivity, motivate employees and ensure business growth.
Transform your shop floor operations with the aforementioned solutions to cope with the competition and deliver an unparalleled customer experience.
