The Shop Floor - The Lifeblood of the Enterprise
The shop floor applications that are the lifeblood of the enterprise — manufacturing documentation, returned material authorizations, tool maintenance, industrial accident reporting, and many other important shop floor applications — are even today still usually handled by inefficient and error-prone paper based systems. One reason for this is that individual plants manage these applications so differently that they be cannot be efficiently handled by a traditional commercial-off-the-shelf software package.
What ERP systems generally do not handle are the massive amounts of details that are required to actually carry out the shop floor production process on a day-to-day basis. Details such as the following are just a few examples of the dozens of shop floor information tracking issues faced by every manufacturing operation that can't be handled by existing information systems.
- Where is the raw, or in-process, material located at this very moment?
- Which machines are capable of performing this operation today?
- Have the gauges used to inspect the part been properly calibrated?
- Are any hazardous materials involved in the production process?
- Where are the drawings required to build the part?
- Are we sure that we have the latest version of this drawing - this minute?
- Are there any warrantee issues involved with this part that may require lot traceability or the collection of part personality data?
- Are there any problems with our process that will prevent this product from being manufactured correctly?
- Where are the computer numerical control programs or the correct PLC programs needed to make the components for this part?
- Are they the correct revisions for this version of the part?
- Where can I find the tooling and fixtures I need to manufacture or assemble this product?
- Where are the assembly instructions and the current bill-of-material (BOM)?
One way to automate these applications is with high-end document management systems.
The problem with this approach is that typical document management companies provide their customers with generic tools that require extensive consulting services to customize the application. As a result, a typical document management system may require one to two years to fully implement at a cost of $1 million to $10 million. In addition, companies also pay for expensive services year after year to maintain or enhance their systems. A shift in the manufacturing process or business workflow often makes such a customized system obsolete and forces it to be either abandoned or customized again at an additional expenditure that is often close to the original investment.
These types of systems are practical only for the largest manufacturing operations that are capable of making this type of investment. But their cost and manpower requirements generally put them out of the reach of the vast majority of small to medium manufacturers and larger manufacturers with diverse, distributed or relatively autonomous operations.
The result is these issues continue to be addressed either by paper-based tracking systems, stand-alone spreadsheet or database applications, or point-based proprietary PC-based systems.
All of these methods provide a very inefficient tracking system. Paper-based forms take a considerable amount of time to complete because, for example, they force the user to write in the entire customer name rather than select from a list. The documents also have to be filed, managed and maintained by hand, which takes time and uses up valuable floor space. It also takes costly time to find documents in a paper filing system. Suppose that the decision is made to switch from one chemical supplier to another. Finding all of the chemicals provided by that supplier might require searching through a year's worth of invoice files, which could take hours. Performing a product recall can take hundreds of man-hours and potentially cost the recalling company its reputation. Spreadsheets or makeshift databases provide some improvements over the paper-based approach but are still relatively inefficient. These systems are typically stored on an individual's PC hard drive where they could easily be lost or overwritten.
Usually, the creator of the information is the only one who knows where it is or how to get information from it. If that person is absent or leaves the company, it may be difficult or even impossible to get at the information. Imagine all of your production notes, on jobs run in the past, being lost due to a crashed hard-drive, or someone just tossing them out by accident.
Finally, both paper-based systems and spreadsheets lack the intelligence of a database system. For example, if you store gauge calibration records on a spreadsheet, the only way to notify someone of a calibration requirement is to manually e-mail them, call them, snail-mail them or use inter-office correspondence. PC-based point solutions provide their own challenges in terms of support, maintenance and upgrade paths, forcing users to do business their proprietary way or end up the owner of a significantly modified system that cannot be supported by the original vendor.
The Advent of a New Generation
Today the opportunity finally exists to simply and safely automate dozens of these shop floor activities with a new generation of software packages that can be easily configured to suit virtually any shop floor application.
These new software packages are developed with state-of-the-art data processing architectures that make it possible for them to be configured to fit a new purpose — usually in under an hour.
They make it possible to automate existing paper-based data collection and information processes without changing current business practices. They also provide a platform to evolve these processes in real-time and capitalize on the benefits of electronic information management technology as a company's experience with a paperless environment grows.
In addition, these new tools provide all of the basic integration and workflow advantages of a high-end document management system. All important documents and files can be accessed from a single location, making it quick and easy for authorized users to find the information they need.
Powerful querying capabilities allow users to instantly locate individual documents or groups of documents that meet specific criteria even across multiple, mixed databases. Complete version-management systems are included which provide control over who is allowed to change documents, ensures that users only access the latest version of documents and maintains a full audit trail of previous versions.
The key innovation in these new applications is they have the ability to be easily configured — even by non-programmers — to handle any type of data, information, picture, drawing, video or workflow.
At the same time, they offer powerful built-in application enabling capabilities such as version control, hierarchical security, remote viewing and red-lining of drawings and other data files via touch-screens, the Web, as well as provide the ability to push critical information onto either a dynamic or predefined distribution list.
Defining the Information Management System in Less Than an Hour
The new generation of programs provide a simplified method for defining the information management system. The user starts by simply creating a database and defining whether it will be based on the built-in Microsoft Access database engine or will access and use another database — or even multiple hetergeneous databases — across the domain.
The next step is creating a datasource — a user-defined collection of distinct information and documents. The user can choose from several pre-built types of structures that help to organize the information. One typical structure is based on a "library" of information divided across cabinets, which are further subdivided into folders that contain documents and other forms of information. Another model, for classical drawing-based environments, may be based on a room that is divided into racks, which in turn contain tubes that hold sets of drawings. Users can create as many cabinets, rooms, racks and tubes as they need to hold project information, bid specs, quotes, documents and drawings.
The next step is creating property sets. Properties are user-defined attributes used to describe documents, information, data and drawings — which are called "items." Every item has a set of core properties that can be used to query for them in the system. Typical core properties are name, label, description, status, created by, data modified, and type.
For many types of items, the core properties are sufficient for finding the item with an English language database query. Other types of items are easier to find by browsing through the hierarchical data structure. Additional user-defined properties can easily be added to the datasource at any time — dynamically. The administrator can make certain properties required fields so that users must enter data into them before saving a new item. Properties may also be provided with a default value or list of values from which the user may make a selection.
The previous steps constitute the essential elements of defining an Info.trak database, used to define an application and track shop floor activities. Their simplicity makes it possible for a non-programmer to define a database to address a new shop floor application in less than an hour in most cases. There are also several optional features that can be added to databases.
Forms can be created to display properties in a customized manner. For example, a manager may want to create a special form to simplify the user interface by hiding some extraneous properties from the end-user's display, or in the case where he wants to replicate an existing form that is already in use and familiar to the users.
An optional step is to create storage areas that allow data to be distributed to various locations throughout the shop. If the users who access the data are in different locations, creating storage areas can improve performance by putting files close to the people who use them.
Robust Information Management Tools
Despite the simplicity of the process used to create the database, the new generation of shop floor applications provides the robust information management tools required in any size manufacturing environment. For example, reading and editing rights can be assigned at the library, room, rack, folder, document, drawing, group or user level, based on rights such as add, change, edit, delete, view and print. The system manager can effectively manage users by assigning them to multiple workgroups or teams and define their associated permissions. Documents can be managed individually or in sets, with check-in, check-out and version control features to assure that users are always working with the most current version of document and that only one authorized user can change a given document at one time. These controls ensure the integrity of mission critical documents.
The application also provides an audit trail that records all the essential data associated with the information at each stage in its life cycle. It records the date, time, and identity of the user performing an operation. The application also maintains all previous versions of each document, making them available only to users with appropriate authorization. The system provides an audit trail that makes it possible at any time to take a look back into the past and determine who did what to whom, when and why. The new applications provide powerful dynamic Boolean querying capabilities using an English language syntax. The querying tool makes it possible to enter multiple search criteria that the system then uses to sort and retrieve information. Users can also visually navigate the storage structure using the mouse to point-and-click on the storage location of information that they would like to access.
The ability to automatically distribute information to a distribution list is another exciting built-in feature of the new generation of shop floor applications. Users can subscribe to various information channels to receive immediate notification of changes pertinent to their daily activities. This information can then be provided to end-users anywhere via a Web browser, video screen, digital marquee, pager, PDA or even a mobile phone. When a change is made, the message is sent to all users on the relevant distribution list. Each person receives a message explaining the change and automatically directing them to the location of the relevant documents in the system. Rather than feeling shackled to their telephone or computer as they wait for important information to be communicated, employees can focus on other projects with the assurance that the critical information will find them wherever they are.
The new generation approach is designed as an n-tiered distributed client/server architecture based on Microsoft's COM/DCOM distributed object architecture.
As originally designed, the system is a two-tiered, FAT-client implementation with all of the COM object agents on the desktop. This system is architected so that each agent can be called via the API and deployed on a distributed server for true scalability. This architecture also allows server-deployed thin-client implementations. The system supports any ODBC database, such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase or Informix. It provides security and library services for information and document control in a multi-user shared document environment. The user interface is similar to Microsoft Outlook for workgroup environments. Microsoft Transaction Server is used for robust workgroup or distributed deployment. An OCR engine for automated title block indexing of engineering drawings is available as an optional component. Another optional component provides server-automated distribution of data, critical documents and related information via the client, Web browser, any digital device or video monitor.