Posts Tagged ‘greif’
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.
Shopfloor Automation in the Multiwall Industry – PSSMA Conference
Posted by gdalleave in Machine Truth Blog Wednesday, 19 May 2010 03:33 No Comments
I had the honour of being invited to speak at the PSSMA (The Paper Shipping Sack Manufacturers Association) meeting in Nashville this month. Dick Storat and Roger Boos put on a great event, especially given the difficult times that Nashville endured with the high water levels. The Cumberland River, which flows through Nashville, apparently rose an amazing 61 feet – that’s about five stories. Flying into Nashville, it broke my heart seeing only roof tops in the middle of the spreading river. Parts of downtown Nashville were without power and flooded, including the Ryman Theatre. Despite this hardship, the people of Nashville welcomed us and put up a brave face. And the music was as good as I imagined it would be. The people of Nashville are extraordinary.
At the conference itself, it was a full house with companies from the Multiwall bag industry and their suppliers attending. We met terrific people at the highest levels of these companies that were honest, forthcoming and wonderfully candid. We learned a lot in just talking to them and hopefully they picked up one or two things from us.
Dick put together a fantastic line up of presenters. Dick himself provided great presentations on the US Economic Conditions and also delivered an update on the Multiwall Industry. Like all industries, the Multiwall Industry has had its challenges but appears to have turned the corner and is poised for further improvement. Bob Cantu gave an eye opening presentation on how to achieve an AIB Superior rating, while Sam Sirois of Circadian Technologies taught us about managing fatigue in shift operations. I finally understand why an espresso is important to me at 11:00 AM and why I am dead tired at 10:30 PM while being wide awake at 11:00 PM. Who knew?
As for me, I presented our view of Shopfloor Automation and Rapid Time to Value in our presentation, “Bringing Machine Truth to the Organization”. While at the conference, we talked with Greif, a long standing member, who again reiterated reaching that “ah-ha moment” after automating their data collection procedures in their Omaha Nebraska plant ultimately eliminating 112 hours of downtime per month.
In the upcoming articles I’ll work through some of the key themes of my Shopfloor Automation presentation. I am looking forward to establishing an ongoing dialog.
If you are contemplating joining the PSSMA but are not sure, take my advice and just do it. Dick and Roger put on a great show and you will meet terrific people who have deep knowledge of the industry. The PSSMA is definitely working toward making the entire industry better.
And please make your way to Nashville to enjoy the great music and the great barbecue. It is an amazing city with great people that deserves our support.
Shoplogix Brings the Manufacturing Shop Floor to the Executive Suite with Plantnode Enterprise
Posted by admin in News Room Tuesday, 9 February 2010 04:47 No Comments
Accurate Role-Based Intelligence Drives Immediate and Sustainable Benefits
Mississauga, ON – February 9, 2010 – Marketwire
Shoplogix is pleased to announce Plantnode Enterprise, an intuitive real-time performance management solution that delivers operational and financial benefits to manufacturers in just days. Plantnode Enterprise provides support for corporations wanting to establish company-wide standards for measuring manufacturing productivity. This new platform brings actionable operational intelligence to the broader regional, divisional and corporate audiences.
Plantnode Enterprise collects real-time data across multiple lines, plants and geographies, enabling standardization and comparison of efficiencies from job to job, plant to plant or employee to employee. Data can be rolled up or drilled down by machine type, individual plant or geographical region, or it can be viewed corporate-wide.
“Now management teams can look at their performance based on uniform, truthful data so they can compare apples to apples and make more informed business decisions,” says Martin Ambrose, president and CEO, Shoplogix. “Plantnode Enterprise also gives managers an opportunity to identify improvements and best practices in one plant that can then be implemented across an organization.”
Global packaging leader, Greif, is deploying the technology company-wide in 90 plants across 30 countries. “Our current method of driving improvement didn’t provide visibility into all losses of efficiency, but Plantnode Enterprise provides an unbiased way to measure effectiveness and capacity planning across our network of plants.” “says Travis Groff, vice president of OpEx Worldwide, Greif. “We want to take our operational efficiency to the next level. Using Shoplogix we have already seen improvement in our initial plants where OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) has increased by 10-15 percent and downtime has been reduced by 8-12 percent.”
Plantnode Enterprise provides several powerful new features, including customizable Executive Dashboards and hundreds of role-based reports that can be set up and shared with colleagues through the “Favourites Sharing” functionality. Reports can be automatically pushed to Blackberry or iPhone devices providing easy access to important information for busy executives. Plantnode Enterprise delivers rapid time to value, yielding intelligence to improve operations within weeks and enabling ROI (return on investment) within three to six months. “In these difficult economic times, accurate information can help manufacturers make the right decisions,” says Ambrose. “We’re dedicated to helping our customers stay competitive.”
ABOUT SHOPLOGIX
Shoplogix is the proven world leader in rapid time to value performance management solutions to produce breakthrough profitability. The Shoplogix Plantnode Performance Suite delivers sustainable results through role-based intelligence and links operational effectiveness to strategic decision-making to competitive advantage. Shoplogix solutions form the foundation for continuous improvement by providing manufacturers with the tools to remove operational inefficiencies, drive growth and increase profitability. For more information, visit http://www.shoplogix.com/.