Tag Archive for: Lean manufacturing

Go Paperless with ShiftWorx™ MES Digital Work Instructions

Go Paperless with ShiftWorx™ MES Digital Work Instructions

Integrate ShiftWorx™ MES Digital Work Instructions solution and benefit with the error-free delivery of information for any application.

Whether it’s preventative maintenance, quality control, assembly tasks and more, ShiftWorx™ MES Digital Work Instructions eliminates paper on the shop floor ensuring efficiency, accuracy, and accountability.

Integrate Digital Work Instructions with ShiftWorx™ MES

ShiftWorx™ MES (Manufacturing Execution System) enables manufacturers in the collection, monitoring, and visualization of machine data and manufacturing processes.  Factory machines of any age, type or brand can be cloud-connected, putting vital analytics in the hands of management and plant floor workers resulting in improved productivity, quality, and reduced waste; and all-the-while empowering the organization to continuously improve!

ShiftWorx™ MES affords manufacturers of any size a shop floor optimization solution that:

◉ Cloud-connects ANY machine, tool or process
◉ Increases your shop floor productivity by 50%
◉ Is rapidly deployed in <5 Days
◉ Reduces waste, and decreases downtime by 30%
◉ Improves employee engagement 20%
◉ Achieves a fast ROI in 3 months!

ShiftWorx™ MES ultimately enables manufacturers to Make Smarter Decisions, Faster!  Contact us to book your industry specific consultation and demo.

#DigitalWorkInstructions #LeanManufacturing #SmartManufacturing #Industry40 #MachineMonitoringSystem #IndustrialInternetofThings #IIoT #ManufacturingExecutionSystem #MESsystem #ContinuousImprovement #ManufacturingAutomation #DowntimeTracking #OEE

The Top 10 Wastes of Lean Manufacturing

Lean Manufacturing is a concept developed during the 1990s, and at the time it was referred to as the Toyota Production System (TPS).  It sets out to clarify the processes within the manufacturing timeline that add value and eliminate the processes that inhibit it.  TPS identified the seven wastes of lean manufacturing, which we’ll be exploring in this blog; but it doesn’t stop there – we’ll also be examining some additional areas of waste that affect the factory line.

TIM WOOD

The TPS “seven wastes” are easily remembered via the acronym TIM WOOD, i.e., Transport, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-Processing, Overproduction, Defects

What are the Wastes of Lean Manufacturing?

Waste is anything that does not add value.  When your production line follows a large number of processes, it’s inevitable that, over time, elements of that process develop that hamper the efficiency of the build.  This costs the manufacturer money, which, in turn, gets transferred to the customer.

Eliminating waste is an essential component in a company’s ability to compete, while helping increase profits.

Your customers expect timely delivery, consistent quality and the right price. So, streamlining your processes to remove waste is essential.

1. Transport

Unnecessary transportation of goods within a factory-line is the product of a variety of problems: poor factory-floor layout; complex handling systems; large batch sizes; storage in multiple locations; and over-production.  These all result in unnecessary transportation.

The movement of materials from location to location is a waste because it adds no value.  You need to pay people to move materials, and the maintenance of vehicles is costly.  A poor floor layout can increase the distance between operations, resulting in delays in processing and expensive transportation costs.

2. Inventory

Inventory costs the manufacturer money until it has been sold on to the customer. Every finished product or material component require storage space; waiting on the shelf to be sold.

Large amounts of inventory increase the chance of transit damage and cause delays in transportation and therefore adds to the wastes of lean manufacturing.

3. Motion

Unnecessary motion occurs where movements by either man or machine are not as small or as simple as they could be.  It could be that your engineer needs to bend down to pick up heavy objects multiple times throughout a shift – this puts strain on their back and could be eliminated by merely feeding those materials at waist-height, rather than on the floor.

This is all common sense because even robots will wear out eventually.

4. Waiting

A sloppy production timeline results in unsynchronized activity, causing waiting within the production process.  Idle time occurs when interdependent procedures are not in synch: operators are kept waiting or work slowly to accommodate slack cogs in the wheel.

5. Overproduction

Overproduction breeds waste!  It results from producing more product than your customer requires.  This causes storage problems from unnecessarily large batch sizes, and an inability to respond to customer need.

If your customer wants 150 pieces of x and 12 pieces of y, but you already have 700 pieces of y and only 10 pieces of x, then your customer is going to have to wait for you to produce to their requirement.  Streamlining your processes to meet customer need means that product is sent directly to the customer, in a timely fashion (and not stored) is a means to reduce the wastes of lean manufacturing.

6. Over-processing

Over-processing occurs where elements of your manufacture don’t add value.  Painting of unseen parts of the product, or cleaning or polishing beyond required levels are example manifestations of over-processing.

Manufacturers need to aim to process to the degree that is useful and necessary.  Over-processing is generally caused by a lack of standardization, unclear specifications, and inconsistent quality acceptance standards.

7. Defects

Defective goods are the most apparent waste.  While faults can never be eliminated entirely, you can reduce them by implementing poka-yoke systems (processes that help equipment operators to avoid mistakes).

This requires thorough documentation of processes and standardized training so that everyone follows a standard set of operations to achieve a uniform result.

8. Wasted Talent

If an employee is simply moving materials or equipment from one place to another (transportation), then that person’s talents are being under-utilized.

Non-utilized talent equally refers to management’s ignorance of continuous improvement feedback that comes from those operating the machines.  If management fails to engage with talent, it’s considered to add to the wastes of lean manufacturing in these terms.

9. Ineffective Performance Measures

Machine or process monitoring is a valuable resource for transitioning a process to lean manufacturing.  By obtaining an accurate data-reflection of current processes, you can identify waste.

You can also empower the workforce by providing the ability to monitor their own performance and recognize productivity norms, while rewarding uniform, standardized working practices.

10. Poor Supplier Quality

No production process can overcome an unreliable supplier.  If you need materials to produce, then you need to be able to rely on your suppliers to make sure your processes are as efficient as they can be.

Of course, there are always extenuating circumstances, but if your suppliers are continuously letting you down, it might be time to look elsewhere.

To Conclude

Your workforce is your business, and making sure that they’re productive is more than continually watching over them.  Listen to them, because they will have the first-hand experience of any problems on your production line.

Eliminating waste is about examining your existing processes, and empowering operators to help you streamline the factory floor.

ShiftWorx™ MES software enables manufacturers to measure and record granular production information right off the plant floor, from any machine or process in real-time to help eliminate the wastes of lean manufacturing.  Not only does this help eliminate waste, it engages your employees with actionable data!

Achieving lean manufacturing is now easier than ever with ShiftWorx™ MES:
Cloud-connect ANY machine, tool or process
Increase your shop floor productivity by 50%
Rapidly deploy the solution in <5 Days
Reduce waste, and decrease downtime by 30%
Improve employee engagement 20%
Achieve a fast ROI in 3 months!

ShiftWorx™ MES ultimately enables manufacturers to Make Smarter Decisions, FasterContact us to book your industry specific consultation and demo.

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#LeanManufacturing #SmartManufacturing #Industry40 #MachineMonitoringSystem #IIoT #ManufacturingExecutionSystem #MESsystem #ContinuousImprovement #ManufacturingAutomation #DowntimeTracking #OEE

CASE STUDY | Machine Shop Increases Productivity By 69% In One Year

Learn How FreePoint’s ShiftWorx™ MES Successfully Helped a Machine Shop Save $325/day by Increasing Productivity 69% in One Year!

The customer is a modern machine shop located in the border region in Mexico. The shop has 4 Electrical Discharge Machines (EDM) that are critical to the company’s production.  The following figures demonstrate the impact of ShiftWorx™ MES solution.

The image below (the before scenario) shows pertinent productivity information from these 4 machines from a typical day before the integration.  The blue bars illustrate the EDM machines’ run times for a 24 hour period and the white gaps indicate the setup time between each run.  Both the run (blue bar) and set-up times (white bar) vary depending on the job.  The shop, in the before scenario, required 24 hours of scheduled production time to produce a total of 43.5 hours of “value adding” activity using the 4 machines on that day.

 

productivity

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The screenshot below illustrates the exact same 4 EDM machines shown one year later.  Similar to the previous scenario, the blue bars still vary in accordance with the jobs being run on each machine, however, the setup times (the white gaps between the blue bars) are now consistently smaller than the before snapshot.  The result from integrating ShiftWorx™ MES is that less time is being lost between productive “value adding” periods.  For the customer, this means that more value adding activity (specifically 57 hours on this day) occurred in less scheduled production time (two 8.5 hour shifts vs. three 8 hour shifts).  All of the recovered lost machine time was then aggregated, and the machines were freed up for an entire shift.  Not only does this decrease production cost for parts being produced, but it increases the plant’s capacity and ability to take on more work.

  productivity

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The image below compares the productivity before in one month, to the same month one year later.  As illustrated in the graph, every day of the month before had machine activity, meaning that employees were in the shop running the machines.  The year after, the machine activity occurred only on weekdays, freeing up most weekend shifts as well.  This allowed the customer to increase their capacity and take on more business.  The machine’s efficiency went up from 33% on a typical 24 hour day the year previous, to 56% on a typical 17 hour day 12 months later representing an increase of 69%!

 

productivity

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At that rate of productivity improvement, the system as implemented paid for itself in 20 days, and the cost of the ShiftWorx™ MES SaaS subscription is recovered in the first day of every month.  It’s hard to beat that kind of ROI!

For More Information on How ShiftWorx™ MES SaaS Can Benefit Your Manufacturing Operation, Please Contact Us to Schedule Your Consultation and Live Demo Specific to Your Industry!

#MetalFabrication #JobShop #SmartManufacturing #Industry40 #MachineMonitoringSystem #IIoT #ManufacturingExecutionSystem #MESsystem #ContinuousImprovement #ManufacturingAutomation #DowntimeTracking #OEE #LeanManufacturing

 

Co-op students: A key to plant managers’ success

As I continue to share the Top 10 Tips I gleaned from industry leading manufacturers over my 40 year career, I almost missed sharing this one.

When it comes to digitizing processes on the plant floor in the pursuit of achieving “Industry 4.0” objectives, it occurred to me that many of my most successful customers had benefitted from the youthful, tech savvy enthusiasm of college students working under the direction of the plant manager, getting ideas put into action that the manager, or his seasoned staff, was not able to do as effortlessly themselves.  New technology has its advantages, but it is not as exciting to the ‘more seasoned’ crowd as it is the younger generation that embraces it naturally and enthusiastically.

About a year ago, I was doing a presentation to a company that has 3 plants and about 500 employees.  The owner of the company was still involved and was at the meeting along with his plant managers, CI manager, IT manager, CFO and a few others.  Almost as a tag-along, one of them invited their co-op student to the meeting, likely because it was his responsibility to keep the co-op student gainfully occupied that four-month term.

Read Paul Hogendoorn’s Full Article in the March Issue of Manufacturing Automation “Industry Watch”

https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=46118&i=740720&p=16&ver=html5

 

VIDEO: Empowering People in Manufacturing with Visualized Data

Paul Hogendoorn, Founder of FreePoint Technologies delves into ShiftWorx™ MES with a presentation and software demo that provides insight into how manufacturing managers and operators alike are empowered by ‘real-time’ visualized data on the shop floor.

Learn how easy it is to set-up ShiftWorx™ software, which in its most basic application cloud-connects your machines to start monitoring and reporting downtime data right-away, i.e., knowledge which instantly provides insight into the efficiency of your equipment or assembly processes while empowering your people with the info needed to improve the status quo.

https://getfreepoint.com/products/shiftworx-lite/

#SmartManufacturing #Industry40 #MachineMonitoringSystem #IIoT #ManufacturingExecutionSystem #MESsystem #LeanManufacturing #ContinuousImprovement #ManufacturingAutomation

VIDEO: What is ANDON?

 

WHY Are the Japanese Companies (especially TOYOTA) Able to Consistently Produce Better Quality Cars? What is it That They do That’s Different from any Other Brands; and Why Are Their Cars Always so Well Built?

Learn more about ShiftWorx™ Plus “Wireless” ANDON System to increase your manufacturing quality today, regardless of the Industry. ShiftWorx™ ANDON is easy-to-use and customizable. Offering all the benefits of an ANDON system and more at a fraction of the cost to integrate given there is no wiring, no installation, and no labor required.

https://getfreepoint.com/products/mes-software/

#Andon #LeanManufacturing #TPS #Toyota #Industry40 #MachineMonitoringSystem #IIoT #ManufacturingExecutionSystem #MESsystem

FreePoint Connect Unlocks New Connection Options (Kepware, OPC-UA)

We have taken another huge leap forward with our release of FreePoint Connect, which fundamentally cloud-connects machines of any age, type or brand; although, it now opens up even greater flexibility via Kepware and direct machine controller connections. Machine connection is step one, and with FreePoint Connect it is easily managed in a web browser using ShiftWorx Plus MES software!

Option One – Connecting Through Kepware
Kepware is an industry leading industrial connectivity platform that can aggregate data from your machine controllers and PLC’s and send that data to FreePoint Connect.

Option Two – Connecting Directly Through the Machine Controller or PLC
FreePoint Connect allows your machine to directly communicate with ShiftWorx through OPC-UA. This machine-to-machine communication protocol removes the need for additional hardware to connect.

Option Three – Connecting Through our FreePoint Remote Module
Our “Black Boxes” will continue to provide non-invasive, secure, and reliable connections to any type, age or brand of machine independent of machine PLC’s.

 

How FreePoint Connect Works Graphic (Click to Expand)

Contact Us today to learn more and see a demo.

ShiftWorx Brings You A Digital Call Box/Andon Functionality at a Fraction of the Cost of a Traditional System

Call Box Screen

Did you know that in our commitment to driving operational excellence and continuous improvement through your shop, we have several additional ShiftWorx Modules that can drive your industry 4.0 and lean manufacturing initiatives? We have touched on enhanced customization capabilities for custom views and dashboard and how coupling Job and Operator data with Business and AI tools can create a wealth of new insight, but today we want to discuss a Digital Call Box Module that not only brings transparency into your process and improves your maintenance response but can be configured to function as a Digital Andon system.

Call Station Example

Our Digital Call Box/ANDON functionality enables operators to send messages (email and text messages) to immediately address issues involving machines (e.g. broken down, safety) with the push of a button. This enhances the clarity of your production process and flows of information on the plant floor by tracking the number of calls, mean time to respond, start time, and completion time of a call. Problems are visually identified so corrective action can be taken immediately.

Best of all, our easy-to-use and the customizable system can be configured with many of the benefits of an Andon solution without the additional costs. With a traditional Andon system costing thousands of dollars to set up and install, The ShiftWorx Digital Call Box/Andon system is even better because:

  • No Wiring
  • No Installation
  • No Labor
  • Immediate Notifications
  • Full Tracking and Reporting Capability

You get advanced reporting and all the advantages of an Andon system, at a fraction of the cost.

To See our Digital Call Box/ANDON system in action, reach out to us today. 

Andon Dashboard

Advantages of Andon Systems

Andon has a crucial place in any lean manufacturing operation or connected industry and provides numerous benefits through:

  • Transparency: – Employees are encouraged to react to problems so that quality, safety, and down time improve. Process owners are notified in real time.
  • Productivity: Problems are quickly noticed and resolved to ensure minimal production interruptions.
  • Empowering Employees: Operators are given the freedom and flexibility to categorize issues when they arise depending on their priority and take action,  instead of waiting on leadership. This increases accountability overproduction issues.
  • Reduce downtime: Operators and supervisors are better able to resolve manufacturing issues and keep the assembly line moving.
  • Cost and time: The Andon board allows for greater communication on the floor so that time is saved and labor is cut.

Ultimately, the goal of any Andon system is about removing anything that inhibits production flow. It is about responding to issues immediately, finding the root cause of the issue, and putting a permanent corrective action in place so that the issue never occurs again. By utilizing the ShiftWorx Digital Call Box/Andon Module, you will quickly be able to document routine production challenges and provide Shift Supervisors and Engineering Departments the knowledge of the frequency and severity of problems that interrupt workflow.

Contact us today to get a demonstration. 

Bridging the IIoT Technology Gap

One of the largest Industry 4.0 roadblocks we often observe rests in addressing the gap in knowledge and objectives that exists between the different levels in manufacturing organizations.

CEOs are usually well intended in adopting Industry 4.0 technologies, but they are not comfortable with the technology conversation, so they delegate down the chain to someone who is. The people deeply involved in IT, or considering advanced technologies, are usually far more technology focused than they are day-to-day manufacturing focused and sit several levels away from the CEO with different responsibilities and objectives that don’t necessarily tie directly to the organizational vision or overall performance.

FreePoint has spent the last few months analyzing this challenge we have developed a Value-To-Vision process and Self Assessment Tool with the help of some industry partners that can address ways to close the gap and assess your IoT readiness. Part of that process was to discuss with manufacturers and understand the roles and objectives of each organization and we have boiled those conversations into the persona chart (Pictured above). There are a few key take aways:

  • Individuals on the left side of the persona chart have very short term objectives – this hour, this shift, etc. They are more tactile, non-financial and have very specific measurements – how many strokes, how many parts, how many minutes…
  • The right side have long term and ‘fuzzy’ objectives (sustainability, keeping work in one plant or another, improving overall competitive position), which are usually financial.
  • In the middle, you have the people tasked with developing and deploying a technology adoption project. They are often disconnected from the vision (CEO) by several layers, and equally disconnected from the people doing the actual work.
  • Sometimes there may be a CTO in the picture, but they are generally not in the value-to-vision stream. Some companies have CIO’s (Chief Information Officers), and because their output (data, information) is consumed by the CFO and CEO, they are more likely to be in the value-to-vision stream.
  • The right side of the chart is the vision side. The left side is where value is actually created day-to-day.

Over the next few months, we will be sharing more information in conjunction with our industry partners. If you would like to have a preliminary conversation on closing the technology gap or review our self assessment tool, please reach out to us. 

Kanban & Lean Manufacturing: Are They Relevant Today: Part 2

In Part 1 of our blog series, we defined Lean manufacturing and Kanban’s association. Today, we take a look at Toyota, the company that pioneered the concept and we answer whether Lean and Kanban are still relevant.

PUSH and PULL Manufacturing

The main focus of JIT is to pull production through the process as the customer actually takes what they want. The ideal flow being a single part manufactured as required; although this is not always possible with many processes without significant redesign or investment. This is very different from what most companies have traditionally done.

Traditionally production processes are scheduled, raw materials ordered and then manufactured to create stock based on a forecast of what the customer is expected to order. This is push production and is driven very much by the materials being fed into the start of the process and all processes being controlled through a schedule or MRP. This typically produces products in large quantities or batches and ties up a huge amount of your capital in stock and Work in Progress (WIP).

Pull production however works in reverse, when a customer takes a product from the end of your production process a signal is then sent back down the line to trigger the production of the next part. Just as a supermarket will fill the empty shelf each preceding process in the flow will request the parts that it needs from its preceding process. This process is controlled through the use of a Kanban.

push and pull manufacturing freepoint technologies

from https://www.industryweek.com/cloud-computing/push-vs-pull-manufacturing-kanban-pull-system-right-your-company

Kanban at Toyota

Cards of the Kanban methodology are used throughout the Toyota plants to keep inventory management lean — no cluttered warehouses, and workshops with sufficient access to parts.

Imagine that your workshop installs Toyota RAV4 doors and there is a pack of 10 doors in a bin near your workspace to be installed one after another, onto new cars. When there are only 5 doors in the pack, you know that it is time to order new doors. But you don’t have to do anything. An inventory replenishment manager, who we’ll call “Mary” whose job it is to check inventory levels of all bins in your shop area, notices that there are only 5 doors remaining in your bin. This is a “signal” that lets Mary know to replenish your RAV4 doors bin. Now, you have the peace of mind that new doors will be manufactured by the time you have used the remaining 5 doors. By the time you are installing the last door, another pack of 10 doors arrives. The result: Doors are only ordered when needed.

Toyota Woodstock, Ontario Plant.

This is how the Kanban system works all over Toyota production floors. There are no warehouses with spare parts laying around for weeks or months. All the employees work upon requests and manufacture only the necessary amount of parts. If orders increase or decrease, production is modified accordingly. The main idea of Kanban methodology cards is to scale down the amount of work-in-progress (WIP). Use only what is needed.

The Problems With Kanban

Kanban systems are excellent for consistent production levels of consistent parts, but can be challenging when inconsistency is the rule. Such inconsistency can mean heavier than normal demand caused by a large order or an unusual rush of many orders for specific parts. A Kanban system cannot typically see heavy demand coming down the pipe, thus causing out-of-stock conditions. Even with companies that use Lean manufacturing techniques, a Kanban system typically requires a constant, complex reassessment of Kanban stocking levels for components because of inconsistency, seasonality and other factors.

“Inventory buffers are also useful when uncertainty is high and disruptions in the transportation network are frequent.”

For the sake of quality, inventory levels are driven to as close to zero as possible in the Kanban system. However, sometimes inventory buffers are needed to guard against not only poor quality items from suppliers but also poor quality from internal processes. Inventory buffers are also useful when uncertainty is high and disruptions in the transportation network are frequent.

Even though lean processes are still at the heart of most manufacturing operations worldwide and are increasingly important in other industry sectors, including distribution and financial services today, it pays to ask the questions, “Is lean still relevant?” and “How does a lean enterprise also embrace investment in new technologies like 3D printing and the Internet of Things?”

Fred Thomas writes in, It’s Time for a Lean Manufacturing Makeover, “While the concept and best practices of the Lean production system remain intact, the implementation on the plant floor faces a major facelift. That’s simply because the entire manufacturing dynamic has transformed to include new technology, new global competition, new government regulations, and a hyper-connected world of intelligent devices and social networks that enable seamless communication between companies and their customers.”

Thomas argues that in order for manufacturers to remain agile, Lean methodologies must adapt and change, otherwise organizations will remain stuck in the 1950s and competitors will vault ahead.

Lean-Here to Stay

So, are Lean and Kanban still relevant? In a word, yes.

Kanban is just one of the methods a manufacturer can utilize to create a lean facility operation. It is, however, a step towards the right direction and a step worth taking. Lean has proven to be a very powerful tool for improving manufacturing performance: higher throughput, lower costs, faster response and increased agility. Lean can be applied to direct production, supporting services, administrative and engineering activities, and just about anything else.

Lean is a singular focus on improvement, and making the most of all resources—from materials, equipment, and technology to the skills and experience of employees. Kanban has branched out of the manufacturing world and has been used as another method for applying agility to an organization. It’s commonly used for customer service teams, business teams and even in people’s personal lives to manage their small business or home life.

lean manufacturing freepoint technologies

Lean manufacturing has a proven track record in improving manufacturing performance.

Lean Manufacturing is as relevant today as it was nearly 70 years ago. And Continuous Improvement is achievable through the repetition of these principles. Lean Manufacturing even impacts Six Sigma, as Lean Six Sigma has evolved into an approach taken to reduce waste, improve efficiency and drive profitability. Worldwide, companies today are looking to their supply chains to find cost savings. Those cost savings can be found by negotiating purchase prices with suppliers, but they can also be found in process optimization. If through the Lean process of waste reduction, you can drive manufacturing cycle times down or reduce scrap — you’re saving your company money beyond the basic cost of goods reduction.

Today’s manufacturers need to be up-to-date on practices like Lean Manufacturing, IIoT, Predictive Maintenance, Machine Learning and so much more. Have questions? We have answers. Contact us today.

 

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