Services +

Services+: Method

The method developed by STAIN in the past 15 years successfully installing MES solutions has been dubbed SPM & BI - STAIN PROJECT MANAGEMENT & BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT.

These initials represent the importance of designing, developing and operating a MES solution for the success of a project, and a MES project can only be successful if:

It produces automatically and in real-time reliable information for monitoring process efficiency, discovering hidden costs and planning corrective and preventive actions.
It organizes and optimizes production and logistics flows, eliminating costly manual compiling of paper documents.
It is perceived as a real advantage, especially by the field operators using it.
It enables those in charge to devote their time not to production bureaucracy, but rather improving products and processes and analyzing indicators and data obtained from the mass of field data obtained.

It is clear that an MES project should not be considered merely in terms of information technology (a bit of installed hardware and software), it must also be approached as an organisational project in terms of:

Establishing targets, responsibilities and functions involved. Clearly identifying goals and allocating responsibilities are often neglected activities, but they are instrumental in achieving results.
Identifying and analyzing standard information flows as well as exceptions that need to be highlighted and controlled.
Verifying the impact on the organisation of the computerization process.
Analyzing interfaces with ERP.
Analyzing the interface with field operators, who must perceive the system as an actual advantage, not as an additional task requiring continuous reporting that has to be double checked by the foreman, leading to a waste of time and unreliable data.
Analyzing field interfaces to automate data collection from machines and production equipment.
Classroom and field training to increase user awareness of continuous monitoring and improvement actions, using key indicators and collected data.

We leave the conclusion to a customer of ours: Francesco Uberto – Delegated Director of ASO and President of the Young Entrepreneurs section of AIB, the Brescian Industrialists Association:

“Globalisation and the current economic situation are rapidly changing the rules on how to tackle the market, so it is vital to gain efficiency in all production processes, especially those that impact most on product costs. After seeing for ourselves at a STAIN customer’s what we could achieve technologically and how much we could improve by reorganising our processes thanks to integrated information, we decided to entrust the project to STAIN as we are convinced that, to bring us benefits, such innovations require a reliable and competent TECHNOLOGICAL PARTNER with specific skills in the sector, and a well-proven method for developing and implementing these technologies and verticalized software solutions, allowing us to adopt only the technology required to achieve true improvements in company processes, thanks to one-to-one advice, an indispensable initial planning stage and a common path in the resulting business reorganisation.”