TOOLS FOR TOUGH TIMES

Manufacturing Execution System (MES)-integrated ERP solutions are claimed to be the key to address the changing demands of the manufacturing sector during this unprecedented pandemic situation. Here’s knowing why…

India, being the secondlargest Covid-19 hit country in the world, has faced a severe disruption across sectors. The unprecedented outbreak of the pandemic has resulted in demand shifts across the various industries including FMCG, Pharma, and Healthcare. The nature of the virus and high contamination threat in public places forced the manufacturers to swiftly change gears, and announce work-from-home policies to handle severe demand fluctuations and unpredictable supply chain disruptions. While manufacturers are adjusting to the new normal of phased and remote workforces, there has never been a greater need for real-time insights from the plant floor to drive innovation and automation of all the facets of injection-moulding production.

To navigate through the current crisis and sustain during the new normal, companies are prioritizing various facets: reduction in production errors, decrease part lead time, enhanced company-wide productivity, improved quality compliance, low-quality losses, and an increase in production. Now more than ever, manufacturing excellence depends on streamlining operations on the plant floor and throughout the product supply network. However, traditional factory Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solutions focus mainly on the plant floor, with minimal integration beyond the four walls or across business functions. It has become imperative to enable manufacturers to take control of their operations everywhere in the enterprise to coordinate and synchronize people, processes, equipment,tooling, and materials on a global scale. Early adopters of MES-integrated ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) can avail of real-time data, the key to creating a strong and fast supply chain with lightning-fast scheduling and pre-defined manufacturing types. It can also cater to the companies with 100 percent accuracy in labeling and electronic mistake-proofing processes. By harnessing data in the MES-integrated ERP system, companies have real-time insights to drive innovation, ensure the quality that differentiates it from competitors, and enable the agility to address customers’ demands for short-notice production. Industries can rely on the MES-integrated ERP system for real-time process and product monitoring, quality management, traceability, and MES to ensure quality while meeting customers’ production deadlines and audit requests. It also enables companies with tracking labor, crutiny material, locating movements, measuring consumption, analyzing wastage on the shopfloor through automated alerts, and manufacturing intelligence. Made-to-Stock manufacturers and Engineering-to-Order manufacturers have been facing critical challenges in the shopfloor production efficiency which is eroding their profits and underutilizing the resources, leading to negative productivity. MES-IoT tools can play a crucial role in ensuring a seamless transition through these changes.

Born on the shopfloor

During manufacturing, cost and time savings are made onthe shopfloor. This is why precise, real-time visibility is a crucial component of the modern manufacturing environment in production and factory floors. There is a constant need to enhance visibility and control across every aspect of the manufacturing process by monitoring manufacturing data to deliver actionable metrics and analytics to manage costs while improving quality. In general, the more digitized a company’s processes are, the simpler it is to collaborate remotely. Off-the-shelf integrated MES-IoT solutions support the continuation of operations with both the shopfloor and design floor that ideally should be connected for organization-wide visibility to help the key decision-makers at the corporate floor to make informed decisions based on the real-time data to be more competitive in the market. Real-time actionable data Real-time data helps in garnering actionable insights into the efficiency of manufacturing processes based on IoT-based sensors. Moreover, Manufacturing Intelligence analytics enhances the quality and speed of shop-floor decisions. Through real-time insights and automated processes, companies can ensure quality and compliance, maximize productivity, and provide a superior management experience. MES-IoT can increase the production efficiency of single machines or entire production lines by using advanced analytics to optimize process parameters.

The IoT tools analyze the information on all available variables, including production, scheduling, asset condition, and input goods. Real-time data from individual machines get combined with information about the overall production program, allowing companies to optimize subsequent production steps. This also allows companies to quickly adjust production schedules to account for changes in demand or unexpected supply-chain disruptions amid the Covid-19 pandemic in India while ensuring zero burnout of the existing workforce on the shopfloor.

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