How to Know if you are Ready to Implement Machine Monitoring
The simple and straight answer is that, if you are a manufacturer and haven’t yet implemented machine monitoring, then you are ready. Machine monitoring offers a wide range of benefits including increased efficiency, engaged employees and an improved bottom-line. Machine monitoring solutions, such as FreePoint Technologies, can be set-up and running the very same day. However, if you aren’t convinced, and are looking for a few more reasons to implement machine monitoring, here are 3 signs you are ready to make the transition:
Machine Operators Aren’t Engaged
A clear sign that something needs to change at your manufacturing facility is that your employees do not appear to be engaged in their work. When a machine operator is not engaged several things can result, such as loss of job enjoyment, more frequent sick days and less drive/commitment. Productivity can take a negative downturn as the employee simply stops delivering at a high or efficient rate.
A Machine Operator Engaged With His Task
At FreePoint, we believe in the importance of empowering and engaging employees with modern technology. Manufacturing processes need to be re-humanized and provide an environment for workers to play a larger role in identifying productivity improvements using factual, real-time process information. Machine monitoring enables that. When our customers share their machine data with their employees, the machinists begin to feel engaged and have a sense of accountability. When management invests in a machine monitoring system, it demonstrates to their employees that they are committed to increasing productivity and continuous improvement.
Lack of Information
Not having enough information on the performance of your operators and machines when making important decisions such as hiring new employees, purchasing new machines or quoting your next job can have a negative impact on the outcome.
With machine monitoring installed, you now have access to real-time and historical data of your machine’s performance. The monitoring system can measure data such as downtime, uptime, part count, OEE and more. This information gives you the ability to make better, more informed decisions with confidence.
Downtime is Consuming too Many Resources
Every manufacturing plant strives to run its operations as lean and efficiently as possible, and one of the largest obstacles that stand in the way is machine downtime. Downtime consumes valuable resources that could have been used for productivity.
With machine monitoring, the data collected can tell you when a machine is down and what type of fault may have caused the issue. Email and text alerts can also be set up to send alerts to supervisors. Knowing this valuable information can help to shed light on what is causing the issue and help to prevent it from happening again in the future.
Are you experiencing any or all of the above challenges in your facility? If so, you may be ready to implement machine monitoring. Get in touch with us today to learn how we can help engage your employees, provide you with meaningful data and limit the downtown of your machines.
