(Houston). “Companies are investing in wireless networks in the shop and using mobile devices to collect labor data, issue material, do bin-to-bin transfers and ship product. Shop-fl oor employees can clock in and out of jobs using an iPad or a tablet. Sales reps can run the CRM [customer relationship management] application on their smartphones, and supervisors can get out from behind their desks and keep tabs on the shop fl oor from anywhere. All of this effi ciency starts with two critical items—a mobile de- vice that can connect to the Web and an ERP program like Global Shop to facilitate the communication. “Ultimately, ERP is all about cutting costs and
Direct interfaces for Global Shop Solution’s ERP software to extract Bill of Materials data from design packages like Autodesk Inventor and Dassault’s SolidWorks can save manufacturers time and money.
Photo courtesy Global Shop Solutions
improving productivity on the shop fl oor, especially for job shops and smaller manufacturing operations.” With ERP, shops get better inventory control, more effi cient scheduling, and improved material handling, so management can focus on growing the business rather than merely trying to survive, he added.
Real-Time Access Is Key Linking top-fl oor management with what’s hap- pening on the shop fl oor is a trend in enterprise software, as ERP/MES/EMI developers maximize the value of factory operational data such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), cycle time effi ciency, part production counts and machine downtime. “When you think about those technologies and about the top fl oor to the shop fl oor, what we see is people trying to fi gure out how to get to the truth,” said Diane Murray, manager, product marketing, the Mattec MES and Informance EMI software from ERP developer Epicor Software Corp. (Dublin, CA). Epicor’s cloud-based ERP solutions include embedded MES capabilities for small and mid-size
SS26
MfgEngMedia.com
manufacturers. For businesses looking for advanced MES/EMI, Epicor sees growth potential in supporting these more advanced capabilities in the cloud, Mur- ray said. “From the top fl oor to the shop fl oor, every- one has a certain set of questions that they want to answer. They’ve got different questions and different problems,” Murray said. “So the big thing is how do we get to a single real-time version of the truth? We answer that with technology by integrating your ERP, MES or EMI systems so they talk to each other and you get a single real-time version of the truth.” Real-time access on the shop fl oor can be a matter of seconds, compared to purchasing organi- zations, where it might be the same day. “Real time is going to mean different things to different people, and it’s how we address that in technology,” Murray said. “It changes all the time. “People want pervasive visibility. There was a
time when you really didn’t have senior-level executives having shop-fl oor information,” she added. Today’s technologies allow an executive or manager to know not only if a given machine in a particular plant is down, but to also know why it’s down, Murray said.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164