Modern Manufacturing Success

Over the years, we’ve shared a lot of information about why you should consider automation solutions for your manufacturing processes.

Today, manufacturing companies have countless options when it comes to technology—and many of these tools can kick start immense gains. They can also help you quickly understand your process and improve your bottom line.

But with all of this technology available, it can be confusing to determine what you actually need in order to succeed. In this post, we will examine the three major benefits of modern manufacturing technology which can help companies be more efficient and profitable than ever before.

Transparency

These days, people are much more connected to everything in their lives. With smartphones, low cost security systems, connected thermostats, and even refrigerators with alerts for when it’s time to buy milk, people now expect convenient access to information.

Manufacturing hasn’t caught up to this reality yet.

But, a modern manufacturing company can easily outpace the competition by simply being transparent about their products. A common tool for product transparency and catching defects is a Track and Trace System.

At the absolute bare minimum, you need a plan for contacting customers with specific details about the products they’ve purchased from you in the case of an issue or recall. Rivian is a great example of a modern manufacturing company that handles recalls incredibly well. Like many automotive companies, Rivian tracks a staggering amount of data about each vehicle they manufacture. Recently, when they issued a recall for a suspension problem, some news outlets explained how Rivian was able to pinpoint the exact vehicles affected by the recall—due to the data collection during the installation processes for each part of each vehicle.

While you may not need to track every single data point on every single item that goes out the door, the ability to easily identify any affected products (along with where they were sold) will allow you to proactively reach out to affected customers. This capability will give you a huge advantage over the competition. You can obtain this super power with a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) integrated with a platform such as Ignition from Inductive Automation.

Quality, Consistently

Technology can also help you bring quality to the forefront of everything you do on the plant floor—which is more concrete example of how technology can enable manufacturing success. Managing quality (with an eye towards transparency) can be integrated with any and all steps of the process. Many companies use post production QA/QC processes with a Lab Information Management System (LIMS) to manage samples, specs, and testing. This is a great approach and will benefit all manufacturing operations.

Similarly, if you run a continuous process and want to see how your process setpoints and conditions affect quality in real-time, a Statistical Process Control, or SPC system is an invaluable tool. SPC automatically tracks your process setpoints against samples and provides real-time alerts when anything begins to trend away from normal.

Regardless of the technology you use, managing quality is crucial for manufacturing success across all industries. The more good products you make, the less rework you have to manage—and the less scrap you will need to discard.

It’s also important to think about transparency in your approach to quality. Tracking and testing the right specifications, while being transparent when there’s deviation from the norm, is crucial to building trust within your team (and with your customers).

Quality is nothing to hide. When it’s lacking, you can lean on the third pillar of modern manufacturing success (adaptability) to help improve quality.

Adaptability

Using technology in modern manufacturing allows you to adapt to any situation. This applies to your production processes, but more importantly it, applies to your people.

Training is critical for the modern business world. With ever-changing requirements, tools, and technology, it’s ever more important to keep your people up to date with the latest and greatest ways to get the job done.

In manufacturing, you can implement real-time training solutions with simulated processes and digital twins. Your operators can train on a system that’s identical to the one they will be using in production. You can even create various scenarios which they can practice managing. This type of practice will give your operators actual experience solving problems in training—before they will impact production.

Additionally, Digital Work Order Instructions will provide your operators with the exact instructions for the tasks they will be performing—right when they need them. This can also tie into quality and adaptability by including quality control sample gathering instructions when needed—and all the data will feed back into greater overall transparency for your process.

As your process and team evolve over time, you can easily update the training materials and processes to keep everyone up to speed at every turn.

Wrapping Up

It’s easy to discuss the benefits of technology and how to use specific tools to get results, but in our experience the real rewards come from everything technology enables.

Technology allows you to be transparent with your staff and your customers, maintain quality, and keep your team up to speed with the latest developments in your process. It helps integrate your operations and maintenance efforts. Simply, it can keep your people and your equipment operating at the highest possible levels.

Enabling transparency is easier than ever with tools like Ignition Cloud Edition, which gives you the ability to easily keep your data and your manufacturing process separate. Connecting your entire enterprise into a cohesive data model is made possible with a Unified Namespace approach. Training operators on real-time process operations can be accomplished using simulated production lines and Digital Twins.

To learn how you can use technology to succeed in modern manufacturing, please reach out and let us know you need a trusted partner who can help take you to the next level!