Posts Tagged ‘accurate machine data’
Three Myths of Plantnode
Posted by jhyam in Machine Truth Blog Thursday, 14 October 2010 21:17 4 Comments
In my many conversations with manufacturing plant managers, owners and continuous improvement teams, I have often encountered a set of presumptions around our manufacturing performance management software – Plantnode. There were some presumptions I came across often when educating prospects on our solution. I thought I’d take a time out to clear up the most common myths about Plantnode.
Myth #1: Plantnode is similar to an ERP system
Fact: Absolutely not, we are a Real Time Performance Management solution. An ERP’s purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business aspects, it takes months to implement and relies on manual plant floor data to be entered into the system.
Our solution Plantnode is what we call “The final frontier to manufacturing excellence,” it fills the gaps between management and shop floor. Plantnode pulls data directly from the machine level giving you 100% machine truth; in other words, it tells you exactly what is happening on your shop floor in real time. Unlike an ERP, it doesn’t take months to implement; we typically have a plant live in a couple of days. Furthermore, our solution encompasses operator engagement, and provides proactive alerts to appropriate plant personal. Plantnode is complementary to an ERP system as the data collected is easily fed into the ERP, in real time, to provide truthful information to the entire organization.
Myth #2: Plantnode is IT centric
Fact: No sir! We are not IT centric at all. We are a plug and play technology that rapidly connects to equipment of any type and monitors performance in real time. How we differ from all other solutions in our space is our rapid time to value and the fact that we can connect to any machine (we don’t need PLCs). All reports are web based so it is non intrusive to your existing systems. Clients are able to pull reports in real time anywhere, where there is an internet connection, whether you’re on vacation sipping a beverage on a sandy beach (via mobile reporting) or in your office you will be able to have a tight grip on things.
Myth #3: Plantnode doesn’t impact the bottom line
Fact: Our clients see a payback on average within 3-6 months. We’ve had clients receive payback as quick as 28 days (http://www.shoplogix.com/ryerson-puts-the-pedal-to-the-metal/). Whether it be packaging giant Grief who realized $80,000 in annual labour savings for their Omaha Multiwall facility (http://www.shoplogix.com/packaging-leader-greif-drives-operational-efficiency-with-automated-performance-management/) or Grande Cheese a smaller cheese producer who accomplished 80% reduction in response time and a payback of 2 months (http://shoplogix-partners.com/casestudies/grande_cheese_company.pdf). Regardless of company size or industry all our clients have one thing in common they all see an increase in production, OEE, and a rapid time to value payback.
In conclusion, we do not replace an ERP system; however we are highly complementary to them. We replace manually imputed data with 100% machine truth. We find between 25-40% discrepancy between manually collected data and Shoplogix Plantnode collected data. We have a plant live typically within a couple days, have a very low IT footprint which also minimizes impact on current projects. Lastly, we offer very dynamic ways to “drive” the solution to identify and establish business benefits as part of an overall justification.
Sustaining Continuous Improvement – Operator Engagement
Posted by admin in Machine Truth Blog Thursday, 15 October 2009 03:48 1 Comment
Continuous Improvement Series – Part 4 of 5
A key determinant of the success of any Continuous Improvement (CI) program is the acceptance and implementation of change by shop floor personnel. Companies face two major problems when creating shop floor change. The first is the buy in of the employees on the floor. The second is creation of systems that help to reinforce the implementation of change on the shop floor. Without creating the reinforcement for behavioral change organizations will not be able to see when change is not occurring.
Provide Visual Cues to Machine Operators
There are several ways to implement systems to reinforce behaviors and engage people . Ideally these sort of systems provide a choice for the employee or operator to make the right decision. Creating this sort of opportunity for input creates an environment where the employee is able to act in a manner consistent with the goals laid out in the CI program.
At the same time it is also important to give visual cues across the organization so that managers can identify where work is going well and where they should pay attention to potential problems.
To achieve both these goals some easily deployed technologies can be used with great effectiveness. The first is to use display boards, local screens or some other feedback loop to let employees and managers know the status of work. Display boards have the advantage of providing status information to all personnel at once. If installed in appropriate locations then both employees and managers can quickly review performance. Screens located at the machine are a good alternative but do lack the broadcast capabilities of display boards.
Whether display board or screen based, how data is presented can determine whether or not employees are properly engaged. Simple tools that can be interpreted with a glance are ideally suited to informing operators and managers of status. The most effective tools are a combination of color and key metrics.
Run rate of a machine is an example of a metric that can be read off a machine and displayed on a board or screen. By adding some colors to indicate trend states in the machine operators can be informed as to the performance of the machine.
Traffic lights create a good common paradigm that is understood across many different cultures. Using red, green and yellow coloring of metrics, like production rate can immediately indicate performance to standards and guide personnel to the right decision to maintain performance. Green can indicate when things are running to standard, Yellow can indicate when the operation is trending out of standard and Red to indicate problems.
Combining colors with publicly mounted display board messages creates an environment where all production personnel can immediately tell whether the work they are doing is performing to standards.
The use of these tools changes the focus on the plant floor, creating the opportunity to leverage accurate machine data in real time alerts that an operator can instantly understand so that the correct decisions can be made to ensure efficient and profitable operation.