According to Plastics Association, although this would apply to other industries, average utilization of plastics injection machine is about 40%. This is the percentage of the total times when a machine is used to produce products that can be used or sold. Other times are just overhead or simply wasted – e.g., setup, waiting for raw materials, etc. For a company to be a world-class manufacturer, this should be around 85%, which is the gold standard. This is a huge gap. If our customers can achieve this, they are doubling productivity without investing in any extra resources and time.
Smart Manufacturing Layers
Smart manufacturing, sometimes synonymous with connected factory, industry 4.0, aims to achieve optimal efficiency in manufacturing by digitally transforming the operations. Keep in mind that smart manufacturing includes different layers. Starting with the hardware systems like machines and sensors, having automation tools and PLC systems and then having Manufacturing Execution Systems / Manufacturing Operations Management systems like Solumina to complete the journey. MES/MOM helps manufacturers to collect real-time data from hardware, automations tools and then be integrated with ERP. This integration allows ERP to have the complete visibility at the enterprise level to manage inventories, resources, procurements, financing, work order planning, etc. One of the main goals of digital transformation is to transform shop floor into smart manufacturing to help manufacturers to manage their core production operations digitally to maximize the production by minimizing machine downtimes and quality losses.
Often, we hear about Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) from our industry and our customers as it is the gold standard for measuring manufacturing productivity. What is OEE?
- OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality where
- Availability = (Total Hours Planned – Lost Time) / Total Hours Planned
- Availability, for example, can tell you why a line has not run continuously during a shift
- Performance Rate (efficiency) = Actual Machine Speed / Design Machine Speed
- Performance is measured by calculating ‘Performance Loss’, which accounts for anything that causes the manufacturing process to run at less than the maximum possible speed. Examples of Performance Losses include machine wear, substandard materials, misfeeds, and jams.
- Quality Rate = Number of Good Products / Total Products Made
- Quality loss accounts for manufactured products that do not meet the required standards, anything that must be scrapped or reworked.
Three stages for successful digital transformation and smart manufacturing
- Monitoring Stage: get the data from the machines. Without the data, you cannot do real time management of the shop floor. This step does not require the involvement of operators or technicians. Our customers can collect the data in the background.
- Digital Stage (Improvement Stage): Operators, technicians and supervisors can see the performances of the machines in real time. This stage allows the shop floor to improve upon the data they have. E.g., is the machine stopped due to mechanical failure or the process failure (i.e., is the setup taking too long)? Are you waiting on the raw material? This step leads to continuous improvement.
- Connected or Digital Manufacturing Stage: product and work order data become parts of these data and all integrated with ERP system. Fully utilizing an MES like Solumina integrated with ERP and PLM system.
You can now see clearly that overall value with Solumina in our customers’ journey to smart factory (digital transformation) is that we make our customers become proactive shop floors from reactive ones. Reactive manufacturing sees problems as they happen (e.g., machine stops, lack of coordination, etc.) and scrambles to react to the problems. In contrast, proactive manufacturing enables our customers to predict the problems and take appropriate measures to prevent them. This increases efficiency on the shop floor – the ultimate goal of smart manufacturing.
