We’re still talking about paper-based manufacturing systems in 2022?

Technology is bringing enormous changes to how manufacturers operate. Information can now flow swiftly from plant floor to corner office, from process engineers to production line workers, from customers to product designers—no matter where the people and facilities are in the world. Everyone in the organization is empowered to solve problems effectively and efficiently.

Yet many manufacturers are still using paper-based systems. They have adopted some digital technologies, such as spreadsheets, emails, and even ERP systems. But they haven’t transformed the way they do business. 

According to one survey, 161 executives in nine heavy industry sectors said they still use a mix of spreadsheets and paper to coordinate contractor prequalification and other vital records. And Forbes reports that invoicing is still largely paper-based for most companies in almost every industry.

What’s going on? Why don’t more companies take full advantage of digital technology?

Change is hard

There are many reasons why companies are still using paper, but the biggest may be simple inertia. Change is hard for any organization. People are used to their paper systems, and executives are busy dealing with more urgent issues. Why risk disrupting business?

Besides, there are legacy technologies throughout the organization, many of them customized and difficult or impractical to upgrade. The old process or system still works, even though it can’t be easily modified or provide real-time access to operations data. Continuing to limp along is easier than overhauling your information systems.

When seeing it through that lens, the cost of change seems high. But when you look at the other side of the coin, the story is very different.

The true cost of paper

There are several ways to measure the cost of paper systems. One is the cost of paper itself. Gartner says that companies spend as much as 3% of their revenue on paper. There’s the cost of the staff to process and manage the paper, plus the cost of moving and storing it as well as the ultimate shredding of sensitive documents after the appropriate time elapses. Organizations can spend up to $20 just to file a document, and hundreds more to find or reproduce paper that’s been misplaced. 

In reality, the actual cost may be much higher.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has estimated that knowledge workers spend up to half their time looking for information. Mind you, these are knowledge workers who must have information to do their jobs! It’s like having half of your production lines shut down all the time because you can’t find the work orders. Which does happen, sadly enough.

Then there is the big picture to consider, such as how an organization interacts with its supply chain, a key factor in building business resilience. Supply chains that operate based on emails and paper can’t change on a dime. Sometimes they can’t change for any amount of money! Yet supply chain disruptions are a nearly daily occurrence, especially for multi-national firms.

The impact from today’s labor shortage

The issue of not being able to staff all open positions across the manufacturing industry is impacting every facet of the business – and is driving companies to make changes to adapt. This issue is predicted to get much worse. 

New employees entering the workforce have grown up as “digitally native” with high levels of technology expectations in how they live their life and work at their job. Who has the better chance to hire these valuable, skilled people—the manufacturing company that has digitally transformed itself, or the one that’s still using paper and decades-old technology?

Not only is the next generation of workers coming to the table with expectations of working in a modern digital environment, but they also care very much about carbon footprints and being environmentally friendly. After all, it will be their world in the future, and they understand that the responsibility lies with them. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, paper products make up the largest percentage of materials that end up in landfills. Going paperless in manufacturing is an important step in fighting climate change.

Will 2022 be the year?

The paper problem continues to worsen. Each year the amount of data that manufacturers create keeps increasing. Some companies are using that information to communicate, collaborate, and achieve measurable profitability and competitive gains, while some are still filing it away in basement cabinets. 

Five years ago, surveys showed that 43% of firms considered themselves “fully connected” digitally, but that number was expected to reach 64% by the year 2022. Well, it’s 2022. I don’t know what the figures will show when this year is over, but I do know that companies still using paper-based processes will be another year further behind than they are now.

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UK vs. U.S. Manufacturing: How Can the UK Close the Productivity Gap?

UK vs. U.S. Manufacturing: How Can the UK Close the Productivity Gap?

For the past decade, manufacturing productivity growth in the UK has stalled compared to the whole economy. With manufacturing accounting for 18% of UK GDP, now more than ever, UK manufacturers need to invest in digital technologies to move beyond COVID-19 and compete effectively on a global stage with rising material costs, inflation, and labour shortages all threatening to hamper future success. 

Global manufacturing has seen more disruption and transformation in the last two years than in the last two decades, fueling a productivity gap between U.S. manufacturers that have invested in digital transformation and UK manufacturers that have not. The full extent of this gap can be seen in research findings recently conducted by IDC as part of their Future of Operations Survey.

IDC asked companies to rate their performance last year compared to two years previously (before the pandemic had begun) across several critical metrics. This was benchmarked against digital maturity capability, with UK manufacturers compared against U.S. manufacturers. There were two clear takeaways from the data. Firstly, a strong correlation across all groups was observed between digital maturity and improved performance.​ Secondly, comparing U.S. and UK respondents, U.S. performance improvements were found to be significantly higher among digitally mature manufacturers.​ 

The U.S. companies that invested more heavily in digital – specifically data access capabilities – gained a clear competitive advantage. The largest performance gaps between the UK and U.S. were seen in the Productivity and Efficiency, Product Quality, and Agility and Resilience categories, with the UK significantly behind in all three of these critical areas.  

So how can the UK close the productivity gap? 

As the IDC data shows, the answer lies in harnessing the power of digital. Many UK companies still rely on manual, paper-based, or Excel spreadsheets to view and manage manufacturing operations performance, making it impossible to keep up in today’s fast-paced, complex world where decisions need to be made in a more connected and immediate way. 

In contrast, those organizations that implemented a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) have unlocked real-time visibility and intelligence, so can now operate with far greater levels of confidence and control. In addition, new cloud-native operations platforms can help create a new kind of workplace that is more mobile, more agile, and more productive than ever before. Further, these companies had greater success in accelerating new product introduction and other innovative approaches to improving performance across their operations. The result was to harness a faster return on investment from Industry 4.0 strategies. 

Digital transformation drives business transformation and fundamentally changes how a business operates and therefore investing in an MES should not be seen purely as an IT or manufacturing project but as a strategic imperative for business success. iBase-t has a long track record in helping U.S. manufacturers to digitally transform how they operate and drive high performance, and with our increased UK presence we are committed to helping UK manufacturers to capture the iBase-t digital productivity advantage too. 

Explore the full breakdown of figures from IDC’s Future of Operations survey here.

UK Digital Manufacturing Productivity Report

Navigating The Challenges of Cloud Migration

Navigating The Challenges of Cloud Migration

 

I recently came across an article from 2014 about migrating to the cloud. Back then, the concerns were all about the providers and the infrastructure. The article cited turbulent web connections, scattered data, and the high cost of premium service as common problems.

How things have changed in just eight years! Today, cloud providers are now a proven option and the economic case is strong. The infrastructure is ready to be used by companies that are digitally transforming themselves. The question is no longer if the technologies are ready, but rather if the enterprises themselves are ready.

In many cases, the answer turns out to be “no”. In a survey by McKinsey Research, industrial firms reported that 30% of their cloud spending was “wasted” while another 23% was over budget. And Gartner predicts that “through 2024, 60% of infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders will encounter public cloud cost overruns that negatively impact their on-premises budgets.

Cloud migration is a big decision – and there are several important factors to manage as part of the process. 

What’s the challenge?

There are many challenges. Consulting firms often say the biggest problem is a lack of strategy and leadership. McKinsey cites several issues, including the complexity of enterprise systems, hidden costs such as unexpected add-on services, and a tech talent shortage that is only getting worse.

According to many analysts, migration problems are exacerbated by a rushed approach that puts technology change before business change. For example, Gartner says, “Under pressure to move quickly, I&O leaders often prioritize the ‘lift and shift’ approach of moving workloads into the cloud without modifying them.”

There are other important issues too, such as security and compliance. Yet, despite all the hurdles, it’s still possible to achieve the benefits of the cloud without overspending or making false starts. 

Fund as you go

Many consultants emphasize the importance of developing a detailed change management plan that focuses on business improvement, and corporate leadership that drives the cultural changes required. These measures can help avoid costly mistakes.

But according to McKinsey, manufacturers can do even better than avoiding mistakes. With the right planning, firms can “bend the curve” by migrating in stages that produce benefits along the way. This allows you to fund as you go, and manage and learn with each step. McKinsey lays out a four-point approach that an enterprise manufacturer must take to achieve this, but I want to focus on just two of them here. 

  1. “Be strategic and sequenced about which applications migrate to the public cloud and then manage cloud consumption. The end-state vision should determine which applications and data should migrate and which should stay.”

There’s a lot of good advice in those sentences. First, you need an end-state vision of what your IT landscape is going to look like before you begin. Then you need to be strategic with how you stage the migration, taking care to manage cloud consumption at each step so you don’t lose control or get in too deep (which is where many companies go wrong). Taking on large IT projects in stages is always good advice, but it’s especially applicable with the cloud because it’s so easy for an enterprise to bite off more than it can chew. McKinsey gives one example of a firm that tried to migrate 30 different legacy systems at the same time. It did not go well.

  1. “Balance infrastructure migration against an ongoing cloud-enabled business redesign since the latter can start to self-fund the transformation. The redesign may include Industry 4.0 tools, new analytics, or new business models. Emphasize business-process improvements, often enabled by analytics, where investment is lower and impact is faster.”

Notice that the emphasis is on business. Technology is intertwined with business processes, and transforming them in tandem will yield the fastest and greatest return on investment. Since nearly every business process can potentially be improved through digital transformation, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit that companies can use to fund the early stages of cloud migration.

Those interested in reading the full article from McKinsey, including many other recommendations, can do so here.

Proceed with caution

There’s no doubt the cloud can fundamentally improve processes for manufacturing enterprises, from internal operations like design and manufacturing to the external world including supply chains and aftermarket support and services.

Enterprises are moving to take advantage. The cloud computing market reached $250 billion in 2021 and most firms have migrated up to 40 percent of their systems to the cloud. Some of these efforts have been successful, but too many have failed or cost far too much.

The lesson is clear: migrating to the cloud is increasingly becoming a necessary step for manufacturers that want to participate and take advantage of today’s expanding digital world. But there’s no need to rush or take on too much at once. The best way to win is to take your time, plan carefully, and proceed with caution with a trusted partner.

 

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iBase-t Solumina iSeries Featured in Microsoft Azure Marketplace

iBase-t Solumina iSeries Featured in Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Availability on Azure can reduce purchase, installation, and management costs of iBase-t’s SaaS manufacturing solutions 

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. – Mar. 21, 2022 – iBase-t, the company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained, today announced that iBase-t solutions are now featured in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Microsoft Azure. iBase-t customers can now take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and HITRUST security of Azure for a more streamlined purchase and deployment experience.

“Being listed in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace is an important step forward of our vision to simplify how complex manufacturing processes are performed,” said Naveen Poonian, CEO of iBase-t. “We are excited to be part of this marketplace to drive greater awareness of our manufacturing SaaS solutions, the value they provide, and our ability to accelerate company growth.”

The iBase-t Solumina iSeries can digitally transform how manufacturing, quality, and sustainment/MRO operations are performed. With a digital framework to view, control, and optimize complex operations, manufacturers can achieve higher operational excellence and greater business resilience to respond faster to unexpected change. 

Built on a cloud-native architecture, iBase-t Solumina iSeries is transforming how manufacturers operate. Simplified systems integration, accelerated deployment time, and streamlined feature additions provide an ideal framework to manage today’s modern industrial digital ecosystem.

The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure. The Azure Marketplace helps connect companies seeking innovative, cloud-based solutions with partners who have developed solutions that are ready to use. 

View iBase-t Solumina iSeries in the Azure Marketplace here.

About iBase-t
iBase-t is a software company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained. Founded in Southern California in 1986, iBase-t solutions ensure digital continuity across manufacturing, quality, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) operations on a global scale. The iSeries, powered by Solumina, is a cloud-native platform that establishes a digital ecosystem to drive innovation and improve operational performance. With offices in the U.S., UK, France, and India, iBase-t drives the manufacturing operations for customers that include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, and Textron. Learn more at iBase-t.com

iBase-t Solumina iSeries Launched in AWS Marketplace

iBase-t Solumina iSeries Launched in AWS Marketplace

Listing eases purchase, fulfillment, and license management of iBase-t’s cloud-based manufacturing solutions

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. – Mar. 21, 2022 – iBase-t, the company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained, today announced iBase-t solutions are now available in the AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors that makes it easy to find, test, buy, and deploy software on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The iBase-t Solumina iSeries can digitally transform how manufacturing, quality, and sustainment/MRO operations are performed. With an operations platform to view, control, and optimize complex operations, manufacturers can achieve higher operational excellence and greater business resilience to respond faster to unexpected change. 

“Availability in the AWS Marketplace helps our customers to get started faster with their iBase-t solution to achieve higher performance and improve operational excellence,” said Naveen Poonian, CEO of iBase-t. “Our listing helps to increase awareness of our SaaS solutions and fuel our growth strategy.”

Built on a cloud-native architecture, iBase-t Solumina iSeries is transforming how manufacturers operate. Simplified application integration, accelerated deployment time, and streamlined feature additions provide an ideal framework to accelerate the move away from manual, paper-based processes to a fully digital operations system strategy.

View iBase-t Solumina iSeries in the AWS Marketplace here.

About iBase-t
iBase-t is a software company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained. Founded in Southern California in 1986, iBase-t solutions ensure digital continuity across manufacturing, quality, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) operations on a global scale. The iSeries, powered by Solumina, is a cloud-native platform that establishes a digital ecosystem to drive innovation and improve operational performance. With offices in the U.S., UK, France, and India, iBase-t drives the manufacturing operations for customers that include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, and Textron. Learn more at iBase-t.com

iBase-t Partners with Cyient to Drive Business Growth

Partnership offers two best-of-breed partners capable of designing and implementing world-class solutions that overcome the unique challenges faced by complex discrete manufacturers 

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. – Mar. 8, 2022 – iBASEt, the company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained, today announced a new strategic partnership with Cyient, a global engineering, manufacturing, and digital technology solutions company. The partnership brings together two best-of-breed partners capable of designing and implementing a world-class solution, purpose-built to overcome the unique challenges faced by complex discrete manufacturers today. 

Manufacturers producing highly engineered, complex products with frequent engineering and design changes are challenged to find the right subject matter experts and purpose-built software products that can help to ease the transition to digital operations management solutions. This type of production process is subject to frequent design changes that must be managed while maintaining quality standards and adhering to strict compliance regulations.

iBase-t’s industry-leading manufacturing software solutions complement Cyient’s significant experience implementing manufacturing execution (MES) and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) solutions for manufacturers operating in complex discrete industries. As a new strategic partnership, Cyient and iBase-t can mutually assist these organizations to overcome the typical challenge of streamlining the implementation of these types of solutions. 

“We are excited to work closely with iBase-t to implement their industry-leading, high-performance manufacturing software solutions to our customers,” said Pierre Carpentier, AVP, Global Head Digital Technologies and Partnerships at Cyient. “We see this as an opportunity to drive significant business growth while helping manufacturers operating in complex discrete industries to overcome today’s most pressing challenges.”

“We see Cyient as an important strategic partner that can help us to drive continued innovation in how software solutions can be implemented faster while serving the needs of the complex discrete manufacturing industry,” said Tom Hennessey, Chief Marketing Officer, iBase-t. “Our combined experience spans both Manufacturing Execution Systems and Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul operations, so can provide even greater value for customers.”


About Cyient
Cyient (Estd: 1991, NSE: CYIENT) is a leading global Technology Solutions company. We enable our customers to apply technology imaginatively across their value chain to solve problems that matter. We are committed to designing tomorrow together with our stakeholders and being a culturally inclusive, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable organization.

For more information, please visit www.cyient.com

Follow news about the company at @Cyient.

About iBase-t
iBase-t is a software company that simplifies how complex products are built and maintained. Founded in Southern California in 1986, iBase-t solutions ensure digital continuity across manufacturing, quality, and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) operations on a global scale. The iSeries, powered by Solumina, is a cloud-native platform that establishes a digital ecosystem to drive innovation and improve operational performance. With offices in the U.S., UK, France, and India, iBase-t customers include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, and Textron. Learn more at iBase-t.com

Mid-Sized Manufacturers Should Deploy Software Like They Grew Their Business

Mid-Sized Manufacturers Should Deploy Software Like They Grew Their Business

Mid-sized manufacturers comprise about 30% of the overall manufacturing labor market and represent 15% of the total manufacturing revenue or just over $1 Trillion in the US (source).    More than 22,000 mid-market manufacturers – defined as companies with revenue between $10 million to $1 billion – contribute to the 10% impact manufacturing has on overall US GDP. The number of mid-sized companies is growing despite the challenges of the last several pandemic-influenced years. Software applications can play a significant role to help grow and scale a business, provided you have the right deployment strategy. When designing their technology architectures and selecting the tools to help them modernize, mid-sized manufacturers need to stay true to form and view software the same way they have typically grown their business.

Just like Tier One manufacturers, mid-sized firms have also been challenged by supply chain and labor-related issues ever since the pandemic began. And, like the larger companies, mid-sized manufacturers have turned to technology to cope – with over 80% of recently surveyed firms reporting increased spending on technology (source).  

Mid-sized Manufacturing Growth

Most mid-sized manufacturing companies get that way by growing from a small business. Some are created when larger manufacturers spin off a portion of their business such as the auto industry did in the late twentieth century with their electronics and non-engine related drivetrain components groups. For smaller companies, the path to becoming a mid-sized supplier often starts in one of several market expansion techniques. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, mid-market growth is best achieved by understanding how to grow in a sustainable way (source). Whether it is by incremental product expansion, adjacent industry expansion with core products, or geographic market growth, the key to successful growth is a measured approach. 

Treat Software Acquisition Like Production Expansion Investments

Mid-sized manufacturers that have grown from the ground up did so by incrementally expanding. Unlike companies that were spun out of larger entities and likely have inherited software systems, these manufacturers typically are moving from paper or spreadsheet-based operations management tools, or small PC-based applications that are incapable of supporting the growing organization.  Unlike a Tier One enterprise with large IT staffs and budgets to hire consulting firms to drive multi-million-dollar implementations, mid-sized firms should acquire and deploy technology in a way that mimics the way they grow the rest of their business, one capability at a time.  

For example, a mid-sized machining operation would typically only buy new CNC machines as product demand outpaces their existing capacity. They would not buy more machines than they could reasonably expect to require in the near to mid-term.  Nor would they buy a machine with so much surplus capacity it tied up the capital they might need in other areas. They should approach software applications, particularly those on the shop floor, in the same way. Rather than buying a large monolithic application, mid-sized manufacturers should deploy software for managing their shop floor (Manufacturing Execution System or Quality Management System) by buying just what they need now. Then, in the future, as more capabilities are required, their functional footprint can grow as their business needs grow.

The Era of Modular Operations Management Systems

The advent of Cloud-based software solutions makes this incremental purchase option economically viable. Also, if the solutions they choose are built on a microservices architecture, it becomes technically feasible as well. Provided the vendor of your MES or other operational software has designed the product to take advantage of microservices and structured its licensing fees properly, a mid-sized manufacturer can buy just what they need, when they need it. So, as you look to move away from paper or spreadsheet-based solutions or replace an older PC-based package, deploy your operational software the same way you have grown your business since its start – incrementally.

Learn more about the importance of a microservices architecture in this article, IDC Research Confirms Value of Microservices Architecture.

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How to Ensure Speed and Quality in Medical Device Manufacturing

How to Ensure Speed and Quality in Medical Device Manufacturing

In today’s competitive and fast-paced manufacturing industry, medical equipment manufacturers are actively seeking ways to produce high-quality medical devices in the quickest way possible. Now that hospitals and individual consumers continue to demand the latest and most innovative medical devices, manufacturers have taken this as an opportunity to excel in the competitive market by trying to be the fastest medical device developers.

The sooner you can present your medical devices to your target market, the faster your products can generate more revenue for your company or brand. Furthermore, being the first manufacturer to market a new medical device is also an excellent way to step up your game, be ahead of competitors, and establish your company’s reputation as a leader in medical device innovation.

Best Ways to Ensure Speed and Quality in Medical Device Manufacturing

Along with the goal of accelerating production, medical device manufacturing companies should also remember to retain quality and excellence when producing medical devices. Thus, having a clear action plan for production will ensure that quality, consistency, and speed are all in sync to streamline the manufacturing process.

For companies seeking to achieve an agile medical device manufacturing process while maintaining quality, the following suggestions may be helpful.

1. Build a Strong Development Team

As with any other industry, a strong and competent development team plays a crucial role in speeding up your manufacturing projects. So, make sure to gather your best team of device designers, quality assurance managers, and usability engineers. These people will help ensure that a comprehensive approach is taken in your medical device manufacturing projects.

Moreover, the team can also formulate action plans by budgeting, setting timelines, assessing risks, uncovering hidden costs, and computing potential revenue. This way, the entire manufacturing process is guaranteed to be fast, efficient, and with less risk.

2. Incorporate Compliance into Device Design

Every medical device you produce must adhere to regional and international compliance standards. These standards were established to ensure that all medical devices are high in quality and usability and can successfully meet customers’ needs. It’s important to remember to prioritize compliance during the early stage of the manufacturing process to minimize delays.

Finding out that a particular medical device doesn’t pass these standards will only mean that it has to undergo the manufacturing process again, delaying the product’s release and eventually taking up more of your company’s time and money. Thus, you should see to it that your manufactured medical devices comply with the standards imposed by the International Standard for Organization (ISO), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

3. Practice Rapid Prototyping

As mentioned in the previous point, if a product must go through the manufacturing process again, its release will be significantly delayed, and the company will have to expend more resources on it. To avoid this and to speed up the manufacturing process, you can practice rapid prototyping.

Rapid prototyping can help you pinpoint possible design issues in a medical device even before production starts. Utilizing medical prototyping services will allow you to verify and optimize your design and eventually speed up your medical device production.

4. Have a Strong Test Strategy

The testing stage of the manufacturing process allows you to verify and validate if the medical device is reliable, durable, and of high quality. Verification is an internal testing process that checks if the device meets the requirements, while validation is an internal-external testing process that checks if the device delivers the promised benefits. Going through these processes will help reduce the risk of a device recall and get your medical devices to market at speed.

5. Employ Automation

Automated medical device production is a cost-effective practice that improves quality control. Automated systems help the development team identify and resolve device issues faster, allowing the products to reach the market sooner. No matter what stage you choose to use automation in, it can streamline your medical device manufacturing process at speed while ensuring the quality of the device.

6. Use Precision Tools

Precision tools ensure better accuracy when manufacturing and machining medical devices. Using these tools will ensure superior quality and highly accurate medical devices while maintaining speed in production.

If you consider using precision tools in your production process, you should also make sure to do constant maintenance checks to prevent malfunctions that could result in production delays.

7. Establish a Culture of Quality

The aforementioned technology, tools, and techniques can provide high-quality medical devices while ensuring production speed. However, they can only go so far depending on your workers’ speed and performance. Thus, you also need to create a culture of quality among your employees. Manufacturing companies that promote this kind of culture usually have a systematic and standardized approach to improving their processes and products. You can also include quality in the criteria for employee evaluation.

Conclusion

Many medical device manufacturing companies continue to look for ways to have an edge over their competitors. One way to do that is by ensuring speed and quality in your manufacturing process.

When you continuously develop superior quality medical devices with speed, there’s a better chance you can build steady partnerships with renowned hospitals, healthcare providers, and other consumers. Overall, speeding up your medical device manufacturing process is a surefire way to elevate your company’s revenue and brand reputation.

 

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3 Steps an SME Manufacturer Can Take to Begin Their Digital Transformation Journey

3 Steps an SME Manufacturer Can Take to Begin Their Digital Transformation Journey

Much has been written about the challenges with implementing enterprise systems to improve efficiency and automate production activities. Given the size and scope of these projects, the time, resource, and cost investment has typically prevented Small and Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and SME manufacturers from considering such an option. Several things have changed in the past couple of years, which has forever changed this equation. New modular manufacturing applications are now available that can be deployed as a managed service on the cloud. This option is quite appealing given that the cost to implement is substantially less with a higher number of out-of-the-box capabilities pre-configured. And, delivered as a managed service, the internal IT resource constraint is eliminated.  

Still, the prospect of a major software project, tied to digital transformation may seem just too daunting for some companies.  After being inundated with media accounts of massive projects that have gone wrong and stories of failed implementations, it is normal to feel hesitant about undertaking the deployment of new technology.  Yet, the ongoing supply chain and labor issues, coupled with current geopolitical instability make it a necessity to do something.  The “do nothing” option just isn’t viable. What follows is a three-step approach to moving away from paper or spreadsheets or an old legacy Manufacturing Execution System or MES.

First: Get Rid of Paper (or Spreadsheets) in Manufacturing Operations

The factor that finally motivates almost every small or mid-sized manufacturer that wants to modernize is the desire to get rid of that paper.  It is well documented that paper-based data collection is the biggest bottleneck most companies face.  While many of these manufacturers have made the move to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or automated accounting system because of customer demand, they are stuck with paper on the shop floor. 

Continuing to use paper or manual production line processes leads to numerous problems such as data entry errors when transcribing shop floor data into the business systems. It also results in less data being collected than is available – both the cost to collect the data as well as load it into the ERP or accounting systems is overwhelming. 

This is not a one-way issue. By having to print work instruction packages and have them move with the products throughout the manufacturing process, there is always the risk of paperwork getting lost or associated with the wrong units. Even if spreadsheets are used to collect some of the production data, there are still inefficiencies. It is difficult to connect spreadsheets to the automated systems that collect the data.  If spreadsheets are often used to send production plans to the shop floor, they are printed out and then become just more paper to manage. In both cases, another downside is that almost always, the information that is loaded is done via batch processes that occur only at the end of the shift or daily.

As a first step, implement a minimal set of MES functionality that allows for the preparation of a production plan followed by a way to execute your work instructions that are part of the plan. By automating this first step, you can begin collecting accurate clean data from every process tracked through the MES user interface. This provides for the timely transmission of information and can unlock real-time status reporting. You’ll get multiple immediate benefits from what amounts to a simple step. And, if the MES is Cloud-based, you will have the ability to deploy it incrementally as another benefit.

Second: Once You Have the Data, Focus on Planning and Execution

Management guru Peter Drucker said, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”  So, once you have gotten rid of paper or spreadsheets, you are then well-positioned to leverage Drucker’s advice. With more timely and accurate data you can begin to focus on process improvement. 

Manufacturing planning is critical to meeting customer requirements, yet many manufacturers know that Murphy’s Law will ultimately impact even the best of plans.  Or as Prussian Field Marshall von Moltke observed 150 years ago “no plan survives first contact with the enemy (paraphrased).  With a modern MES/MOM system and current timely and accurate information, a process upset due to a machine outage, raw material issue, or labor challenge can easily be adjusted for.  The ability to rapidly implement new production work instructions is another benefit.  With a digital or automated production planning and execution system, it is much easier to update workflow and process steps as new or better methods are developed or required on the shop floor.  

Third: Deploy Advanced Capabilities like Integrated QMS

As you follow a continuous improvement process in your planning and execution efforts, it is natural to expand the scope of these benefits by integrating advanced capabilities, such as an integrated Quality Management System (QMS). Once only available to companies that could afford large integrated deployments such as a major ERP package, the modern MES allows mid-sized manufacturers to access the tools large manufacturers take for granted to manage and improve their product and process quality. 

Here is a notable example of how the benefits of investing in a modern digital automated solution continue to grow. And, how it is possible to incrementally add new functionalities over time – just as you would do to expand your business. Trying to deploy these capabilities without the solid foundation that the first two steps provide is just not practical. Point solutions might be appealing but often end up just requiring additional paperwork or data entry – introducing new data collection errors and increasing costs. Hardly a step forward! 

Planning your migration to digital, automated production systems can be done in steps. With a solid foundation, an SME manufacturer can achieve higher performance by virtually eliminating manual errors and avoiding all the time spent reconciling paper records. As a next step, Tier One quality and service can be incrementally added, gaining the advantages of a larger enterprise’s agility and responsiveness. 

Read more about the strategy of embracing a modular implementation strategy to digitalize production processes, Mid-Sized Manufacturers Should Deploy Software Like They Grew Their Business.

 

Whitepaper: Digital Manufacturing