Tag Archive for: Machine Monitoring

4 Ways to Increase Production Capacity

For many manufacturers, increasing efficiency and production capacity is the primary focus. However, where the challenge really lies is in increasing production capacity without hiring additional staff or purchasing more machines.

Fortunately, manufacturers can leverage industry 4.0 as a driver for growth as well as productivity; with machine monitoring technology, you can unlock the full potential of your factory, and those who operate within it.

Machine monitoring provides a long list of benefits to manufacturers, these benefits result in increased production capacity and increased profitability. For a real world example, a client of ours managed to improve overall efficiency by a 69% in just 1 year – saving roughly $325/day without increasing personnel or machines.

Read below to learn the 4 ways to increase productivity without hiring new employees or procuring new equipment.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement through machine monitoring is focused on inviting collaboration between management and machine operators. It is not a “big-brother” tactic, quite the opposite actually, by showing employees how their contribution affects the big picture, you help unite management and plant employees working towards the same goals.

Using visualized dashboards, employees can easily see their role in the manufacturing process from a data perspective – which helps them fully realize the value of their contribution. This can even evolve into a “gamified” environment, as employees compete to see who can be most productive. This encourages employees to constantly improve, as they can now view their performance in real-time.

Downtime Narration

Machine monitoring allows for real-time narration of downtime, another way a manufacturer can leverage IIoT to increase production capacity, without increasing headcount. Not only is downtime narration critical for plant managers seeking seamless production, it’s also a strong motivator for employees as well. Obtaining insight into what causes delays allows employees to better understand the impact of any delays in their work station.

It’s important to understand all data is good data. Even unexpected downtime or broken machines can give you valuable insight into your process. With proper real-time narration, managers can identify and mitigate root causes of machine downtime, as well as highlight strong points in the production chain.

Bottleneck Identification

Like we mentioned earlier, machine monitoring provides valuable insight into your manufacturing processes, one of those insights is bottleneck identification. When one process is being delayed due to another person or machines performance, you know exactly where along the workflow the delay is occurring – empowering you to address the problem in real-time, and create fixes to prevent it from happening in the future. By proactively identifying holdups in your process, you are better positioned to make actionable changes to your workflow that will increase both efficiency and productivity.

Maintenance Alerts

Machine monitoring also enables a more proactive approach to machine maintenance. Rather than having to wait for someone to notice a machine is broken, then communicate that to management, you can get real-time alerts as issues arise. That means a significantly faster response time when a machine unexpectedly goes down, and a much quicker fix. It all comes down to maximizing machine uptime, the more value-added time that a machine contributes, the more efficient your plant becomes.

Are you ready to Increase your Production Capacity without Adding more People or Machines?

With FreePoint’s globally deployed solution, manufacturers are seeing near-immediate benefits to their processes. Increased efficiency, mitigated machine downtime, and improved employee engagement are accessible benefits to all those willing to shift into the IIoT world.  Machine monitoring not only helps management make more informed decisions, it also provides real-time visibility into individual contributions and the entire production process overall.

If you’re interested in saving time and money, being proactive about your machine maintenance, and gaining total transparency into your entire production process, you should consider making the transition to industry 4.0.

Machine Cloud-Connection – How Does it Work?

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FreePoint Connect provides the various means to get your machines or processes operation data connected to the cloud.

New machines, or legacy machines of ANY age, type, or brand can be easily connected using our patented technology in 3 ways. Learn how it works by following this link:
GetFreePoint.com/How-it-Works

 

ShiftWorx™ MES software enables manufacturers in the collection, monitoring, and visualization of machine or process data; putting vital analytics in the hands of management and plant floor workers resulting in improved productivity, quality, and reduced waste. ShiftWorx™ empowers your organization to continuously improve.

The optimization of your shop floor can begin as a low-cost, low-risk pilot project that:

  • Cloud-connects ANY machine of any age, type or brand.
  • Is rapidly deployed in less than 5 days.
  • Increases your shop floor productivity by 50%.
  • Achieves 30% decreased machine downtime.
  • Achieves 20% improved employee engagement.
  • Offers a fast ROI in less than 3 months.

Contact us today to consult with our shop floor optimization experts:

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

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PRESS RELEASE | FreePoint Announces the Appointment of Two New Board Members

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – FreePoint Technologies Inc.
June 9, 2022

FreePoint Announces the Appointment of Two New Board Members

London, OntarioFreePoint Technologies, a leader in the manufacturing machine monitoring and data insights industry, today announced the appointment of two new members to the board of directors: Sophear Net and Rick Jankura.  This brings the number of board members to five.

“I am very pleased to welcome Sophear Net and Rick Jankura to the FreePoint board”, said Dave Eto, Chair of the Board of Directors.  “Sophear and Rick are distinguished executives with valuable, direct experiences in manufacturing and manufacturing technologies.  We look forward to their strategic contributions to FreePoint as the company continues its high growth trajectory.”

Sophear Net is an experienced technology executive with extensive industry experience in electronics, software development, project management, and renewable energy.  Sophear is a Professional Engineer and holds an MBA.  Previously, Sophear was the CTO of FreePoint and the company is very pleased to have her involved now in the role of Board Director.
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Rick Jankura brings a wealth of expertise and industry experience to the FreePoint Board.  Rick is a Chartered Professional Accountant and senior executive with a diverse range of executive management experience in both private and public companies and board of director experience in private businesses and public sector entities.  He has held senior roles with companies in a broad range of industries including banking, venture capital, aviation, manufacturing and health care.  Rick will assume the role of Chair of the Governance and Audit Committee.
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About FreePoint

ShiftWorxTM, by FreePoint, is a powerful machine monitoring technology solution with visualized data, product tracking, manufacturing insights, employee engagement, and more – enabling manufacturers to measure production utilization and experience 35%+ efficiency gains.  Manufacturers across numerous verticals can now make better decisions faster.

 

Media Contact
Tony Borges
Director of Marketing
tony.borges@getfreepoint.com
800-682-0486 ext. 116
https://getfreepoint.com

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Collect.  Analyze.  Share.  Improve.

 

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

The 3 Key Benefits of Machine Monitoring

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Today we highlight the 3 Key Benefits of Machine Monitoring.  Step 1 though is getting the machines cloud-connected, at which point you gain real-time visibility into your shop floor with ShiftWorx MES SaaS; all by simply opening a web browser on any device, anywhere!

Now that your machines are connected, what are the 3 Key Benefits of Machine Monitoring (or monitoring manual processes, and assembly workstations alike)?

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Key Benefit #1 – Reduce Downtime

Every manufacturing plant wants to run their operations as lean and efficiently as possible and one of the biggest obstacles that stands in the way is downtime.  Downtime consumes valuable resources that could have been used for productivity.  When ShiftWorx™ machine monitoring system is integrated with your machines, managers and supervisors are notified as soon as the machine goes down.  They can then investigate the issue, find out what the problem is and prevent it from happening again..

Key Benefit #2 – Empower Employees

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 bigger 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, operators and shop floor supervisors alike start to feel engaged and gain a sense of accountability.  When management invests in a machine monitoring system, it demonstrates to their workforce that they are committed to increasing productivity and continuous improvement.

Key Benefit #3 – Make Informed Decisions

The data received from your machines helps you to make more informed decisions on a daily basis.  Here are just a few ways the information is used:

  • More accurate quoting for jobs
  • Better decision making on the purchase of more machines
  • More informed decision making for hiring employees
  • Useful information that can be used for training employees


FreePoint Technologies is dedicated to helping manufacturing companies improve their bottom line, engage their employees and bring modern technology to the plant floor.  Through the power of the internet and our patented technology, we are able to cloud-connect ANY machine, and give you the software tools you need to continuously improve manufacturing operations with visualized data, and more.  Reach out to us today for your Industry specific consultation and demo!  Also, have a look at our latest customer reviews at Capterra.

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

WEBINAR: Microsoft VOX ISM Best Apps Conference

Learn more about FreePoint’s ShiftWorx™ at the Microsoft VOX ISM “BEST APPS CONFERENCE” – Featuring apps for Manufacturing Digital Transformation.

In Microsoft VOX ISM’s webinar on Thursday, May 5 from 1:30-3:30PM EST, you’ll learn about the Top 10 New Apps for manufacturing businesses; including FreePoint’s ShiftWorx™ that helps you to improve productivity, employee engagement and profitability over-all.  Read more details and register here: https://voxism.com/event/microsoft-best-apps-conference-2022/

Microsoft VOX ISM

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FreePoint’s founder, Paul Hogendoorn, presents at 3:10PM. He looks forward to sharing how ShiftWorx™ software digitally transforms manufacturing with visualized data. From machine connection to the cloud, to production scheduling, machine or process downtime tracking and more; it’s the real-time visualized data presented in easy to understand dashboards and reports that afford you the means to improve. You can’t improve what you don’t measure, right? The proven means and key to continuous improvement is in the ShiftWorx™ app!

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ShiftWorx™ affords manufacturers a shop floor optimization solution that:

  • Cloud-connects ANY machine of any age, type or brand.
  • Is rapidly deployed in less than 5 days.
  • Increases your shop floor productivity by 50%.
  • Achieves 30% decreased machine downtime.
  • Achieves 20% improved employee engagement.
  • Offers a fast ROI in less than 3 months.

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@Vox_ISM #VOXISM #DigitalTransformation #Apps #SmartManufacturing #Industry40 #MachineMonitoringSystem #IIoT #MESsystem #ContinuousImprovement #DowntimeTracking #OEE #LeanManufacturing

The Most Common Problems Manufacturers Face Transitioning to Industry 4.0

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We highlight the tools and knowledge manufacturers need to be successful in their transition to Industry 4.0 and the IIoT.  Start with understanding the problems.

manufacturing problems

What are the Most Common Problems Manufacturers Face in their Transition to Industry 4.0?

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1. The Manufacturing Skills Gap

One of the biggest manufacturing problems U.S. businesses face is the growing skills gap.  Approximately 22% of existing skilled manufacturing workers will be retiring by the end of 2025.

2. The Internet of Things (IoT)

Connected machines on the shop floor let manufacturers collect real-time data; and even enable remote machine diagnostics and repairs.  Manufacturers that want to stay ahead need to identify how they can use the IoT to its full potential.

3. Efficiency Issues

Manufacturers have been looking for efficient solutions to decrease costs and increase efficiency at their operations.  Instead of sacrificing product quality, manufacturers have resources at their finger-tips to increase efficiency and capacity by adopting new technology.

4. Collaboration Issues

There is a communication gap between management on the shop floor – info is not being shared in real-time to affect positive change.  Facilitate on-the-ground communication among employees, customers and partners with digital collaboration tools.
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Manufacturing Problems? Solved with ShiftWorx™ – Learn More About the Solution, See a Software Demo

manufacturing problems

ShiftWorx™ not only identifies machine downtime reasons, it engages your workforce in the process. Contact us anytime to discuss your Industry specific manufacturing problems.

ShiftWorx™ affords manufacturers of any size a shop floor optimization solution that can begin as a low-cost, low-risk pilot project that:

  • Cloud-connects ANY machine of any age, type or brand.
  • Is rapidly deployed in less than 5 days.
  • Increases your shop floor productivity by 50%.
  • Achieves 30% decreased machine downtime.
  • Achieves 20% improved employee engagement.
  • Offers a fast ROI in less than 3 months.

Read our Reviews at Capterra: https://www.capterra.com/p/188388/ShiftWorx/reviews/

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

VIDEO: Solving Problems Manufacturers Face Today with Visualized Data and Empowered People

Lisa Bailey, FreePoint Technologies’ CRO, discusses the key problems manufacturers face today in their transition to Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).  In this presentation Lisa provides insight into how ShiftWorx™ MES Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solves these problems with the visualization of downtime data, which once known serves to engage and empower people in all levels of the manufacturing operation.

Learn more about FreePoint Technologies continuous improvement philosophy and see a demo of ShiftWorx™ software in action as she shows you the most powerful features of the machine monitoring and manufacturing execution solution; with real-time manufacturing KPI dashboards, shop floor communications (Andon), email/txt notifications, analytics reports, and much more.

Step-one is machine connection, which can be deployed in days to instantly relay data in real-time, metrics that can be displayed on large shop floor monitors or HMIs, or accessed from any web browser on any device.

http://getfreepoint.com/mes-software/

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

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

GetApp Recognizes ShiftWorx™ as a SaaS Category Leader

GetApp.

FreePoint’s ShiftWorx™ has been recognized by GetApp (Gartner) as a SaaS Category Leader in 2022. ShiftWorx™ is now scoring 83/100 for its Manufacturing KPI Dashboards, and 84/100 for its Reporting / Analytics features.

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ShiftWorx™ Plus MES software visualizes manufacturing data, which enables manufacturers of any size to truly understand how efficient their shop floor is, and where improvements can be made. Unlock the knowledge that firstly identifies where manufacturing bottlenecks exist, the reasons for machine or operator downtime, and most importantly how to engage your workforce in the process!
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ShiftWorx™ Affords Manufacturers of Any Size a Shop Floor Optimization Solution that:

⦾  Cloud-Connect ANY Machine of ANY Age, Type or Brand.
⦾  Increase Your Shop Floor Productivity by 50%.
⦾  Rapidly Deployed in <5 Days.
⦾  Achieve 30% Decreased Machine Downtime.
⦾  Achieve 20% Improved Employee Engagement.
⦾  Benefit with a Fast ROI in Less Than 6 Months.

 

GetApp

GetApp’s Category Leaders in Dashboard: https://www.getapp.com/business-intelligence-analytics-software/reporting-dashboard/category-leaders/

 

GetApp’s Category Leaders in Reporting: https://www.getapp.com/business-intelligence-analytics-software/analytics-reporting/category-leaders/

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Visit GetApp for additional details and to read the latest user reviews: https://www.getapp.com/business-intelligence-analytics-software/a/shiftworx/

Book your software demo today!  One of our product representatives will be pleased to consult with you on your application or Industry specific requirements.

#getapp @getapp #gartner #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

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