Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are an Effective Tool to Realize Continuous Improvement!

Importance of Continuous Improvement

Today, our manufacturing environment is characterized by constant change. Even after improvement activities are implemented and optimized, new solutions soon emerge again as better technologies are emerge and increase in use.

Therefore, in order for a manufacturing plant to continue to excel, it is necessary to build and maintain a culture of continuous improvement, where information is collected and improvement activities are carried out continuously.

How to build and maintain a continuous improvement culture

In order to build a culture of continuous improvement, it is important to have clear goals and metrics, and to delegate to the right authority required to achieve them.

In order to maintain a culture of continuous improvement, it is necessary to create a state of constant awareness of shared goals, provide access to up-to-date data that allows the team to compare the goals with the current situation, and provide signals or system-generated notifications, so the right authority can take the right action at the right time.

People in all positions, from factory floor workers to managers, have goals. Each manager or supervisor needs to compare these goals with the current situation, and give quick and appropriate instructions and advice.

Goals and Indicators (KGI/KPI)

Improving manufacturing performance involves either increasing sales volume, reducing manufacturing costs, or both. Therefore, setting goals and metrics, i.e., key performance goal (KPGs) and key performance indicators (KPIs), should be considered from the following perspectives:

ⅰ. Improving Customer Satisfaction to Increase Revenue
• Quality improvement
• Responding to diverse customer needs (e.g., small lot production)
• Shortened delivery time and reduced inventory
• Taking sustainability, including Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), into consideration 

ⅱ. Reducing Costs by Decreasing Unplanned Stoppages and Production Losses
• Quality-Related (e.g.; inspection time, rework, scrap, etc.)
• Waiting Time (e.g., waiting for machine cycles, waiting for equipment to be restored, waiting for delayed parts)
• Work Time (e.g., work that can be eliminated, writing reports, entering production results)
• Energy consumption (e.g., energy consumption by unnecessary machines, at unrequired times, or in superfluous amounts)

Manufacturing Execution System (MES) Deployment Makes Continuous Improvement Easier and More Effective!

Visualizing the difference between the current situation and agreed upon goals, as well as the propagation of visual and other indicators required to establish and maintain a culture of continuous improvement, can be achieved by deploying a MES.

For example, time previously spent by workers and operation managers preparing reports, can be significantly reduced by using a MES to capture information in real-time. In addition, by collecting and analyzing data, such as the amount of loss, time of occurrence, occurrence status, and other potentially relevant parameters, one can effectively determine the cause of the problem. In this way, MES enables quick and effective continuous improvement activities.

Reference Materials

ITO Corporation signed a distributorship agreement with ProManage (Headquartered in Cicago, USA R&D in Istanbul, Turkey) for the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) ProManage.

This article is based on ProManage's blog, "Smart Manufacturing".

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