Background/Problems
Production is counted in terms of goods leaving the line: usually packaged in some form e.g. handling units, containers, pallets, boxes… These numbers have to be captured and fed back into ERP as a fulfilment against the Production Order. In cases where the ERP system is not used on the shop floor, then capturing these numbers in MES to feed back into ERP can be helpful.
Depending on how long it takes to fill a container, visibility of the rate of production can be difficult to assess. In these cases it can be very helpful to count production in real-time, for example as derived by machine cycles. In this way production rates are visible immediately and production problems are much easier to spot.
Solution
The Production Counting Module of Shopfloor-Online™ Lifescience Edition provides two levels of solution:
- Manual recording – allowing operators to enter production quantities directly in the system either when it occurs or at the end of each production run in the shift
- Automatic recording – by direct connection to the machines to counts cycles and therefore piece counts. By capturing production counts electronically direct from the machine/line, Shopfloor-Online™ Lifescience Edition is able to track production in real-time
Note: if there are no PLCs to get the signals from or that is difficult, a simple solution is to install very inexpensive PLCs just for the purpose of data capture.
Shopfloor-Online™ Lifescience Edition offers a powerful range of reports and analysis to allow production to be reported by machine, line, department, shift, crew, reason, product, and so on. For example:
- Actual cycle time vs. Target cycle time (best demonstrated cycle time)
- Production speeds
- It also calculates relevant KPIs like Production Efficiency, Actual Cycle Time
- Additionally, real-time production can be presented on dashboards and can be used to raise alarms via email/SMS.
When Used with Other Modules
When the Production Counting module is used in conjunction with other modules of Shopfloor-Online™ Lifescience Edition more opportunities open up. For example:
- When used with the Downtime, Spoilage and OEE modules can deliver real-time OEE reports
Benefits
- React faster – improved immediacy of production information – speeds and cycle times
- Avoid over-making – with real-time counting – because you know precisely what you’ve made
- History – provide a detailed history of production performance and with the powerful reports allow
- Continuous Improvement teams to identify areas to work on
- Visibility – dashboards give everyone the current picture – live.
- Save time – with automatic data collection – save considerable time and remove paper
- Dual mode – uniquely, Shopfloor-Online™ Lifescience Edition allows some lines to have data collected automatically and others manually. This means you can invest in automatic data collection where the payback is more likely, but still get the benefit of a plant-wide unified spoilage recording system.
