With relentless overseas competition and continued economic pressure, many mid-market and smaller companies are seeking shop floor management solutions to improve customer satisfaction, reduce scrap and rework, and streamline processes for efficiency. A shop floor management solution provides comprehensive, real-time management of shop floor activities. The foundation of a shop floor management solution is the database, which manages information captured from a range of devices, such as barcode scanners, test equipment, operators PC’s, and equipment using PLC communication and monitoring.
Shop floor management solutions that include a business intelligence solution or that display business intelligence reports will put information in the hands of people who can effect the day to day activities – enabling them to drive the three main benefits of a shop floor management solution:
Customer Satisfaction
A shop floor management solution can increase customer satisfaction by predicting task completion to ensure on time delivery performance, improve support operations leading to customer delivery, such as transportation and logistics and accurate billing, and enable companies to respond quickly to different tracking and reporting requirements.
Streamline and Process Maturing
A solution has the potential to provide better visibility and timely information to assist shop floor supervisors manage their production responsibilities, track employee productivity, assess adherence to defined production processes, and allow managers to take steps to increase process maturity levels.
Reduction of Scrap and Rework
The shop floor management solution monitor can pull real-time information on defects per inspections and first pass yields, analyze quality control performance against standards, and display progress goals for defect minimization and other production metrics. An shop floor management system that integrates with maintenance applications and inventory management applications will support efficient scheduling of maintenance and downtime and better control of work in process (WIP) inventory.