It should be the case that, in manufacturing, having an abundance of work is a good thing. Labor and machinery are running at full capacity, finished goods are moving through the plant as fast as new work orders are being generated, and production efficiencies are enhancing the bottom line.

However, when abundance turns to overloading, labor and machinery often have a hard time keeping up. Sure, fresh work orders are coming in fast, but the ability to produce product is exceeded by the time available to actually manufacture the goods and adhere to quality standards.

There is only so much time available in the day, and if machines are running full capacity all the time, then there will inevitably be (more…)

If you’ve ever owned a car, you know the importance that maintenance has in keeping things rolling. With any machinery such as a car, it is a sort of “pay me now or pay me later” mentality where the idea of regular upkeep, ahead of any breakdowns, means that costly and time consuming downtime for repairs is hopefully prevented from occurring.

In other words, preventive maintenance is designed to: 1) predict the onset of machine or component failures; 2) detect failures before they have any significant impact on manufacturing operations; and 3) repair (or replace) the machine(s) or component(s) before the failure occurs.

Indeed, by scheduling the preventive maintenance of machinery on our terms and in our schedule, we can plan in advance for a short term downtime during the most convenient time available to us; that is, for a day or time when, perhaps, the asset is (more…)

When industrial visionaries create improvements in manufacturing technique far ahead of their time, reluctance to change is the common response of managers comfortable with traditional, production methods.

From Adam Smith’s eighteenth century “pin factory” to Frederick Taylor’s “scientific management” in the nineteenth century, and Henry Ford’s twentieth century “mass production” to Taichi Ohno’s contemporary “pull production” model, shop floor operation has been in constant evolution. In all of these periods of change, it has often been the early adopters of emerging manufacturing techniques who have enjoyed great benefits over their competitors.

Those benefits often result in increased market share, profit margins, or both, from enhanced efficiencies in the manufacturing process. In many job shops, make-to-order, or mixed mode manufacturers, these efficiencies in production are (more…)

It used to be the case in job shop manufacturing that when something needed to be done, the information relating to the task was passed along the line with paper forms. Dispatch lists, routers, schedules, requisitions, and job orders were written down on hardcopies.

However, hardcopy forms often proved to be inflexible pains to change if there were hiccups in the system. Furthermore, there was always a disconnection between areas like scheduling, shop floor work centers, inventory, and shipping.

In the old days of paper forms, there was the constant problem of miscommunication—everyone in the plant was not always on the same page. The results were (more…)

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for manufacturing is, in short, the consolidation of a series of interconnected processes that when added together efficiently produce a finished product. In turn, each process has its own certain requirements that are specific to their area function—its own way of “doing things”.

For example, inventory management involves the processes of acquiring, storing, and distributing parts and other raw material to the various aspects of the operation. Shipping entails packaging and transportation of finished goods. In each instance, procedures should be developed in such a way that (more…)

One of the toughest parts of total enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation in manufacturing is, perhaps, the efficient collection, storing, and analysis of data. Whether information comes from the shop floor in terms of employee time, work in progress or materials inventory, or from departments such as master scheduling or shipping, the wide variety of operational areas in a plant calls for the centralization of information. Such a notion is at the very heart of Lean manufacturing, and it is one that is important in contemporary “pull production” manufacturing operations.

Of course, the centralization of data collection for use in manufacturing software means there must be centralized data collection points useable throughout a plant. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) terminal is a tool that gives shop employees a centralized port to input and interpret production data quickly and easily.

It is more important than ever that (more…)

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a mode of manufacturing built upon the notion of a single software program serving the needs of all aspects of the operation. In strict terms, the true ambition of ERP is to integrate all departments and functions across a manufacturer through the single-source software program, while eliminating departmental standalone computer systems.

It is hoped that such integration will facilitate the sharing of the same real-time data simultaneously to all areas of the plant, thus coordinating decision-making processes and outcomes. To this end, an ERP approach can have significant on-time delivery improvements and positive ROI–if, the software is installed properly, integrated system-wide, and correctly utilized in operation. (more…)