Why an MES system

In production processes today information passes down through a series of different corporate and decision-making levels to relay operations to the “field”, i.e. the departments, starting from the heart of the system, namely management.
At the top of the pyramid is ERP, part of the corporate management system, which is now an indispensable tool enabling manufacturers to classify and computerize business flows and logics. At the bottom are the various departments, with their plant and machinery, PLCs, instruments, paper, stores and supervision systems, all entities that are equally important in guaranteeing perfect process control. Linking these two different areas of business within the same company is strategic for the survival of the business itself. Controlling the logical and physical process links, identifying those in charge of each piece of information and controlling synchronisation from the bottom up, and vice versa, means reducing inefficiencies, increasing quality and reducing wastage, including hidden costs.

We are clearly not referring here to evident costs, which have obviously been eliminated; we refer to the numerous little wastages that we do not eliminate simply because we are unaware of their existence. Recovering efficiency can no longer involve a single major point of improvement because if we had not made it a long time ago we would not be in the marketplace now.

Our experience working with numerous tap manufacturers, mechanical workshops, die-casting and moulding bays has taught us that an effective and significant recovery in efficiency is the result of the combination of numerous tiny efforts in many areas of the production process (rejects, production and tooling times, maintenance, factory logistics, up-to-date production standards and much more besides).

Let us present a classic example. We often tend to forget that the incidence of micro-stoppages is important if we are to achieve a clear improvement in efficiency. If a machine stops for longer than an hour or so, every one knows about it, but if the cycle time is increased by a mere 3 seconds per minute due to contingent process requirements and then someone forgets to go back to the standard time, you will only discover it much later when you look at the printouts the following day and the loss is 5% of the total shift output.

There are many other similar examples that can be quoted: exact cost allocation to a job order based on known, non-standard data; automatic real-time recording of the number of items produced and the time taken to do so, allowing accurate planning; definite answers to customers regarding stock availability; elimination of paper, paperwork and transcription errors. You will undoubtedly be able to think up other examples more relevant to your own business.

STAIN’s answer to the question of how to increase profit margins is a simple one that can be summarized in the following statement: “We must relay details of what we have produced at the same rate at which the products pass through the various departments, and with the same accuracy and precision with which we are good at making them.”

STAIN products provide an invaluable LENS and GAUGE. The LENS is used to “see” the hidden costs concealed in production processes, and establish suitable measures to be taken to eliminate them. The GAUGE is used to “measure” in real time whether organisational and technological improvements have effectively increased productivity by machine, department, article or job order.

This is clearly not merely a technological intervention, it is based on four interdependent factors: technology, organisation, information and change.

It is very important to choose a partner that can work competently and has proved it possesses specific skills in this area, one that can provide clients with invaluable experience in terms of organisation, technology and,  more importantly, method.  The partner is of fundamental importance when acting on the variables of technology, information and consulting, whereas the variables of organisation and change must be controlled by the Client, who must be firmly convinced that having definite information in real time and collected automatically from the plant and machinery provides an invaluable means for increasing profit margins.

We would like to mention just some of the main  advantages that have resulted in major improvements in our clients’ productivity margins following the identification of hidden costs using STAIN’s MES solutions:

• Automatic recording of times and OK parts and rejects, with exact costing for each stage.

• In-line inventorying, with stock reduction and the elimination of physical inventory times and costs.

• Reutilisation for other tasks of human resources previously used for manual production processes.

• Total elimination of transcription errors and omissions since field production reports no longer need to be compiled by hand.

• Real-time updating of work progress and stocks, giving optimised scheduling and reduced delays in deliveries.

• Complete traceability of each container back to casting of the raw material in the event of non-conformities.

• Recovery of financial resources to minimize stocks of unfinished products (WIP).

• Recovery of financial resources and reduction in machine stoppages, with computerized tool management (moulds, matrices, blocks, plugs, etc.)

• Increased awareness of global company indicators by heads of department.

• Shorter stoppages thanks to an accurate identification of causes.

We are firmly convinced that people and their experience are the most important resource for a company today, which is why they should not waste time trying to “interpret” hand-written information on work sheets – they should spend their time improving processes in order to increase margins and guarantee a future for the company.