FEATURE Smart factories and AI
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Murata improves its manufacturing after applying smart factory processes
Mr. Naito (pictured left) of Takefu Manufacturing Department #1 at Fukui Murata Manufacturing and Mr. Yamauchi (pictured right) of the Manufacturing Enhancement Promotion Department, discuss business improvements at Murata following re-engineering of the manufacturing processes across its sites
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s production lines continue to expand, the manufacturing industry is facing a major issue – improvements are expected to
be done more individually. To address this, Murata is now reviewing and redesigning its work processes from the perspective of business process re-engineering (BPR).
Integrated data infrastructure Murata makes multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) – one of its key products – with ever-increasing global sales, which in turn expands the amount of work required, including new overseas production sites and the number of management systems and tools. With growing production volumes, the quality of the MLCC high-end products must be met, too, which becomes Manufacturing team reached out to the Manufacturing Enhancement Promotion Department to help determine the root causes of imperfections during production, to prevent any defects from occurring. One of Murata’s medium-term challenges was to switch from chasing problems to improving manufacturing quality, so the concept of quality DX activities (Q-DX) was formed. It was noticed that problems were arising from the formation of silos during many systems and data redundancy. Murata has 15 MLCC production lines around the world, and each site is working on its
40 July/August 2024 | Automation
own improvements, with its own systems, databases and applications. The teams set out to apply consistent standards across all sites, with an integrated and comprehensive perspective. A single database was required to connect ECM and SCM.
Q-DX scope and initiatives The MLCC-producing department at Murata learned that smart factory and DX initiatives help reduce quality variation and build production lines that function reliably. To make further improvements, a mechanism was conceptualised to prevent any defects from occurring, by reviewing all the processes standardising and automating the feed-back and feed-forward steps. By automatically detecting quality variations and sending out alerts, a standard process could be used to handle known defects on any of Murata’s sites. The gathered data on defects with unknown causes helps create ‘cause’ surveys to determine appropriate actions for retaining product quality.
The data was also supplied to the design department to prevent any product variations from occurring at the design phase. Running through the standardisation loop based on a manufacturing infra-structure system makes it easier to take measures that don’t rely on individual skills or experiences. The goal was to achieve ‘Made by Murata’ quality, with consistent QCDS, regardless of where a product is made.
These new, standardised processes also meant involving the personnel on the sites. Murata didn’t expect great motivation if it just dropped the new data infrastructure
to learn how to use these processes for themselves, redesign their own work based on common rules, and take an active role, but also continue to update and improve the processes.
Three ‘actuals’
In manufacturing, the three ‘actuals’ and principles should remain constant. As you standardise work, you can spend more time on sites, and deal directly with any problems that arise there. The goal is not to use digital tools, but to use DX as an opportunity to completely review how to work and contribute to customers and society.
At Murata we agree that people should do what they need to and what they can do, and leave the rest to digital tools and machines – this is how new things are created and unknown causes of problems discovered. A common data base for sharing techniques and knowledge, and allowing anyone from the company to access it, will add to new innovations. Since these new introductions at Murata, the amount of data handled at the company has exploded and put to good use, improving its manufacturing and design capabilities many times over.
automationmagazine.co.uk
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