Industry Insight
How Plant Managers Can Save Time Leveraging Manufacturing Analytics Learn why tracking manufacturing data and analytics is an indispensable tool in the hands of plant managers operating modern manufacturing facilities.
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ime is the most valuable commodity in the world. No one can create an additional amount of time for themselves. Creating more output in a given unit of time improves productivity and is also helpful in improving profitability. Production time is an important metric that determines the efficiency of any manufacturing process. For example, consider that your company has to deliver 1,000 pieces of a toy for next Christmas. If you require 10 hours to produce 1,000 toys, you need to pay your employees for 10 hours. The machinery will also be running for 10 hours for which you will have to pay a proportionate amount for energy, maintenance, etc. If you can reduce the production time for manufacturing 1,000 toys to 8 hours, you save 20% on labor costs. You will also save a proportionate amount for energy, maintenance, and other operating expenses. You will be able to increase production capabilities. As a production manager, you ought to find all avenues to save time in the manufacturing process. You can leverage the burgeoning field of manufacturing analytics to save time in the manufacturing process. Let us take a look at manufacturing analytics and how it will help you save time.
What Is Manufacturing Analytics? Analytics is the field of discovering, interpreting and communicating, patterns and insights from data. Manufacturing analytics is performing analytics on data and information related to manufacturing processes. Analytics is performed on manufacturing data to optimize for different problems. These problems could be improving quality, reducing raw material usage, increasing efficiency, etc. Earlier data collection was a manual process which relied on pen and paper to record and store data. With the advent of computers, data collected could be stored and analyzed using digital means. But the data was not a steady stream of information from machines and plants in real time. The data were discrete in nature. Due to this, any manufacturing analytics using such data had blindspots. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is set to change this paradigm in data collection. Now every sensor and
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actuator in a plant has the ability to collect a steady stream of data and send the same over the internet. IIoT, coupled with 5G and cloud computing can deliver a steady stream of real time data for analysis. This large amount of data generated can also be stored in cloud computers to conduct manufacturing analytics. Software solutions are used to collect, store, and track data for manufacturing analytics. The specific software to be used, depends on your requirements and constraints. Some ERP applications can perform manufacturing analytics. If you use such anERP, you don’t need another application. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) can also be used for tracking manufacturing data and performing manufacturing analytics.
Benefits Performing analytics on manufacturing data generates insights into manufacturing processes, inventory management practices, labor utilization, and a slew of other important plant functions. Manufacturing analytics has the potential to deliver a large number of advantages to plant operations. Some of the benefits delivered by manufacturing analytics are: » Increase in manufacturing efficiency » Improved inventory turnover » Improved quality of output
