Meeting modern manufacturing challenges via digital transformation
By Jamie Veinot
Product manager, Americas, SYSPRO
The current economic environment for plastics and plastics machinery manufacturers isn’t necessarily poor, but it is uncertain. The prospect of a global trade war and ever-intensifying competition are driving manufacturers to develop strategies to cut costs, increase efficiency and scale effectively to meet demand.
Especially in the mid-market, manufacturers still rely on manual processes to manage daily operations. Unfortunately, this lack of digitization clouds their visibility into customer needs, machine maintenance, supply chain trends and much more. Leaders lack the information they need to make fast and informed decisions about expansion, capacity and how to best allocate resources.
This all leads to poor decisions, bad investments and missed opportunities. Digital transformation is well past a nice-to-have endeavor; no manufacturer can afford the inefficiencies that come with manual methods of doing business.
Digital transformation doesn’t need to take place all at once, however. Mid-market plastics and plastics machinery manufacturers can start by choosing use cases that will have the most impact and then build from there.
A path toward creating a digital shop floor
The three most important cost drivers for any manufacturer are labor, machinery and materials. The more information an organization has on these three drivers, the better positioned it will be to find opportunities for optimization.
Labor
Finding skilled labor has long been a challenge for plastics and plastic machinery manufacturers, and it’s only getting harder. As organizations automate to fill these labor gaps, they need to ensure they’re implementing digital systems that can provide real-time data to track productivity. Additionally, many mid-market manufacturers still use timecards and spreadsheets to track employee information, both of which can be replaced with automated, digital systems such as a modern ERP.
Manual systems mean plant managers spend a lot of their valuable time tracking down job status updates, while decision-makers work with outdated or inconsistent information. These inefficiencies result in lost productivity, inaccurate quotes and reduced customer satisfaction. By contrast, digital systems provide managers with information that enables them to find bottlenecks that slow operations; ensure resources are used in an optimal way; and make decisions about hiring, scheduling and capacity planning based on hard, current data. What’s more, automated systems free employees from having to spend time on data entry, a task that automation can complete more accurately, anyway. In this way, employees can spend more time on activities that truly add value.
Machinery
As mid-market manufacturers grow, order volume, of course, increases, which makes it difficult to ensure high quality while also delivering on time with manual systems. As organizations modernize equipment, they should ensure that machine sensor data is fully integrated into production systems so leaders can accurately track and even predict equipment performance.
Even better, this data can be fed into analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) applications to enable predictive maintenance, which identifies potential breakdowns and issues before they occur so they can be addressed. This helps avoid unscheduled downtime and keeps the production schedule running without interruption.
This comprehensive approach to quality management helps ensure consistent standards throughout the production process while maintaining high throughput rates. Digital systems enable real-time monitoring at three critical stages: raw material inspection, production monitoring and final verification.
Materials
Modern manufacturers need to be able to trace materials end to end, and digitally enabling this capability has benefits beyond simplifying and ensuring the accuracy of regulatory compliance. For instance, having this data on hand provides digital supply chain management systems —which are typically a key component of a modern ERP platform — with information that AI and analytics can use to identify supplier risks. For example, AI can predict which suppliers are likely to be late with deliveries and update the supply chain system/ERP with realistic shipment arrival dates.
Secondly, inventory management applications can optimize materials usage, ensuring that businesses do not waste money buying more raw materials than needed or find themselves short during a production run. And materials tracing can elevate quality standards by allowing users to track suppliers of deficient materials and informing AI applications that can predict the risk of recall.
All these digital capabilities translate into more-satisfied customers and bottom-line business benefits. Sales and customer service representatives can communicate accurate delivery dates upon request without having to pore through records or walk the shop floor. Quotes can be based on actual production data rather than estimation and guesswork, so that pricing is accurate, profitable and competitive. Factory managers can see bottlenecks as (and even before) they happen, increasing capacity utilization and boosting productivity.
As the manufacturing industry continues to evolve, the ability to make data-driven decisions based on accurate, real-time information is increasingly vital to remain competitive. Manufacturers who embrace comprehensive digital solutions position themselves to meet growing market demands while maintaining operational excellence and profitability. Those who resist this digital transformation risk falling behind in an increasingly competitive landscape where real-time visibility, accurate data and integrated operations have become standard requirements for success.
Jamie Veinot
Jamie Veinot is product manager, Americas, at SYSPRO Americas where he serves government, medical, and commercial clients across North America. Since joining SYSPRO in 2008, he has worked in various roles, including sales, solutions engineering, and consulting. Jamie oversees the implementation of SYSPRO's product vision and mission in North America.
