Now is the time to adopt and invest in technologies that can help to unlock your true manufacturing productivity potential. Transformational change is possible thanks to both current and emerging technologies that are raising the productivity game to the next level. Sometimes the only problem is knowing where to start. Making sense of all the options available to you and which ones will give you the greatest gains can seem complicated. So let’s break it down and focus on ways that we can help improve your productivity.

The theory at the heart of continuous improvement, lean manufacturing and six sigma is not new. You’ll have heard about and probably practice them in some form. What has changed, and continues to evolve, are the technologies that can more accurately and quickly facilitate these strategies. The path to improvement can be broken down into a simple four stage process:

Data > Information > Knowledge > Action

1. Capture live DATA direct from your manufacturing resources and processes
2. Analysis of the measured data provides you with the INFORMATION that identifies areas for improvement and can help you prioritise
3. You can then share and apply the KNOWLEDGE that you have gained throughout the business and even into your supply chain
4. With this closed loop approach you can take detailed, considered and sustained ACTION to continuously improve

Sounds simple. So how can manufacturing software technologies effectively support it?

Here we will focus on the software technologies that Seiki specialises in. Production planning and scheduling, data collection and machine monitoring software is fundamentally all about understanding and improving your productivity through flexibility and effectiveness. Our products each deliver three key things; accurate data, live data and greater visibility.

When considering what you might need for your business to improve its manufacturing productivity, the best place to start is with a question. Let’s run a couple of examples to get you started.

1. Where are my production losses and bottlenecks really occurring?

You want to know where your losses are actually originating from and therefore whether you’re prioritising or investing in the right improvement strategies. In this instance we would recommend starting with the collection of live event data from your machine tool resources to accurately identify downtime reasons. Analysis of this data will reveal all productive and non-productive events that occur on a machine, which can then be consolidated into a view of the cell or whole shop floor. Having captured the downtime reasons you will then be able to effectively prioritise appropriate corrective actions. For example, if you are frequently seeing Maintenance as a downtime reason across all your resources an adjustment to your preventative maintenance strategy may be the first priority. If it’s a problem on one particular machine, you may need to investigate that resource specifically.

2. Why are we frequently running late on delivery promise dates?

It is a common error to assume that you are frequently running late or missing customer delivery dates due to a lack of capacity. It can be a costly misconception too if your improvement strategy is to invest in additional resource. Production planning software will enable you to quickly run scenarios to determine whether you have opted for the most effective schedule for all planned operations. The Seiki Scheduler works to finite capacity, so every scenario you run will be based on what you are actually capable of in terms of resources, hours and availability. You can then test the impact of adding capacity (hours or resources) to see whether strategies such as offering overtime will help improve your ability to deliver jobs on time. The system will also help you identify production bottlenecks and so, with this greater visibility of all W.I.P. operations and their live progress, take a proactive approach to avoiding late deliveries.

Increasing your manufacturing productivity potential

The common theme in these scenarios is the use of data and graphical information to make informed decisions. Your productivity improvement strategies will be based on facts. As powerful as these two modules are on their own, their combined intelligence when installed as an integrated solution offers even greater process advantage benefit.

Whether you invest in a single module and evolve your manufacturing system organically as changing requirements demand and the business grows, or you decide to take a holistic approach, every step you take into this exciting new manufacturing landscape is raising the platform upon which improvements can be made. Your potential just got greater!