Access to plant floor information helps improve product quality and efficiency.By Jim NeaweddeThe automotive industry is one of the largest and most dynamic sectors of the global economy. Increased globalization and the saturation of mature markets have resulted in an intensely competitive worldwide industry. This has resulted in ongoing restructuring of production operations in an effort to improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase quality and improve flexibility.
Changes also are occurring on the supply side of the industry. As tiered suppliers develop more and more of the components for brand owners, they are taking on added responsibility for ensuring the quality of that product, including being held accountable for the warrantees associated with those components and sometimes even back charges and penalties.
Third-party and legacy systems, such as Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk, can help keep track of critical plant assets and improve quality and efficiency in automotive manufacturing. |
The Six Sigma discipline manages quality by combining statistical process control (SPC) and lean manufacturing to reduce variation and increase quality. SPC is a statistical tool that is used to drive out quality. The metrics derived from SPC can help automotive manufacturers understand a problem, address it and build improvement into the manufacturing process.
Used in conjunction with SPC, lean manufacturing is a production methodology that aims to decrease human labor, inventory, time and space while keeping the company highly responsive to customer demands.
The key to reaping the full benefits of Six Sigma and lean manufacturing is enterprise-wide integration. The ability to exchange real-time information between manufacturing and the rest of the plant is critical for making business decisions that increase quality, reduce costs and increase productivity.
Plant-wide information software is playing a key role in helping to bridge the gap between enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and plant-floor databases by unleashing the relevant real-time information embedded at the automation layer, and exposing it to the people and systems that need it. One available plant-wide information software solution is the FactoryTalk integrated production and performance suite. FactoryTalk provides preferred integration with the Logix Control Platform, third-party controls and collaboration with other applications to help manufacturers better integrate the factory floor with plant and enterprise information systems.
In addition, manufacturing execution systems (MES) have seen a dramatic surge in interest from manufacturing enterprises as a result of their ability to pass plant floor information into business-level systems. Linked to the materials planning and procurement systems, an MES solution turns production data into useful information to support managers in making mission-critical decisions. For automotive manufacturers, this allows for better, real-time business decisions.
A key MES capability is to provide error proofing, a lean manufacturing process designed to help reduce mistakes, making it easier to address regulations by interfacing directly with the manufacturer’s assembly line to verify that the proper parts, tools, procedures and specifications are followed.
By interfacing directly with the assembly line and using an error proofing system, an MES application can provide manufacturers with input on how much is being produced, how long it takes to produce a unit of output and where downtime is occurring. With this knowledge, manufacturers can maximize efficiency by producing precisely the amount of output required. An error proofing solution also helps prevent costly slip-ups, such as premature shipping of parts that have not gone through all of the proper checks — a major issue in the automotive market.
When an automotive manufacturing plant utilizes MES, it gains benefits beyond the initial investment or solving a single problem. With continuous return on investment (ROI), a manufacturer can reap rewards long after implementation — such as coordinated and synchronized plant, business and supply chain processes.
As the use of information from the factory floor became necessary, the concept of a customer being able to track a vehicle from entry through production and shipment is now a reality. MES gives manufacturers visibility into where changes need to be made to increase productivity by taking information from the factory floor and turning it into useful information. For example, if an automotive supplier is unable to meet production, work can be rerouted or orders can be substituted rather than shutting down the entire plant.
With the information generated through a properly deployed MES system, ordering materials can occur on an automatic basis. Rather than handling inventory and materials management transactions manually, an MES can recognize when inventory is low, send an e-mail to the supplier and a corresponding purchase order to accounting. This allows automakers to more easily shift production to meet demands, such as a change in consumer interest in a particular vehicle.
Furthermore, environmental regulations, quality standards and tracking and traceability requirements — from both industry and government — further magnify the need for better manufacturing information. For example, the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act requires automakers and their suppliers to report on defects that cause bodily harm by closely tracking the exact time and shift that a specific part was assembled.
Some automakers are turning the TREAD Act’s compliance pressures into a major opportunity — taking the information generated through compliance requirements and using it to improve warranty management systems and catch potential recalls earlier in the process.
Finally, as market globalization continues, automakers will be forced to comply with varying standards for each country, which will put even greater demands on data collection, structure and access. Investments in integrated manufacturing systems will deliver immense benefits, including higher quality products, improved efficiency and better use of capital.
The good news is that most manufacturers can integrate their control and information systems today. As automotive manufacturers continue to recognize the immense value that factory floor information has to the rest of the enterprise, the next step is to combine Six Sigma and lean manufacturing activities with mandatory compliance activities to gather even more information for further improvement in overall productivity and efficiency.
Jim Neawedde is the automotive segment business lead at Rockwell Automation.ADVERTISEMENT