Sustaining Lean Manufacturing Initiatives

In today’s competitively demanding business environment, where price pressure and the need for constant differentiation is imperative, discrete and batch manufacturing companies are actively pursuing operations excellence by applying Lean manufacturing principles with the methodology and techniques of Six Sigma.

While Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma have been embraced as enabling manufacturing methodologies, few software solutions have been successfully applied. Many consulting gurus see Lean methodologies in contradiction to IT, claiming Lean principles are primarily visual techniques focused on the management of operations personnel. Until recently, limitations in applying technology have been caused by the difficulties inherent in changing software-based business workflows or rules through technical IT resources.

Lower Cost. Eliminate Waste. Reduce Cycle-time.

Lean is a continuous journey for manufacturers aimed at lowering costs, eliminating waste and reducing business process cycle-times. To stay competitive, companies need leaner manufacturing processes to keep product costs down and quality up, while working to eliminate the seven wastes of manufacturing identified by Value Stream Analysis: Inventory, Delay, Motion, Transportation, Overproduction, Overprocessing, and Defects.

FlexNet® Process Builder lets you model business processes for operations execution to a level of detail required to eliminate potential waste. Once modeled, the processes can be executed in production using FlexNet’s workflow engine. With FlexNet you can track and manage:

1. actual time per activity against standard time for machines and labor, allowing detailed and continuous Value Stream Analysis based on real-time, reliable data
2. downtime history and related reason codes for OEE calculation and Pareto analysis of resource downtime
3. inventory and work-in-process (WIP), in real-time
4. material movement at handling unit levels (with source & destination locations, quantities, lot, serial and license plates numbers), in real-time (see FlexNet Lean Material Flow)
5. defect, scrap and rework at unit levels
6. any related deviation for immediate corrective action, with corresponding alerts delivered, in rea-time
7. information in a unified database, for easier and faster analysis of root causes

By analyzing the history of process information, Lean “Kaizen” teams can quickly locate waste to continuously improve processes. Improvements are quickly performed by modifying graphical depictions of process workflows and, when validated, automatically deploy these best-practice processes consistently to any plant with FlexNet Global Process Manager.

Enabling JIT & JIS

With FlexNet, you can manage Just-In-Time (JIT) and Just-In-Sequence (JIS) to support advanced Pull based production models. These methodologies have been successfully applied with FlexNet to further reduce inventory and WIP levels. Replacing manual, paper-based Kanban cards with FlexNet’s on-line JIT techniques allows you to avoid limitations of manual paper cards:

1. Significant time and resources required to audit and manage physical Kanban cards
2. Lost or duplicate cards
3. Time spent manually re-sizing the Kanban loop when demand fluctuates
4. Problems associated with extending Kanban pull to external suppliers and related plants
5. Inability to know when necessary parts are in process with distant suppliers
6. Lack of real-time cycle time and KPI measurements for continuous improvement analysis
7. Incomplete traceability and history data
8. Wasted clerical time spent manually inputting ERP systems

Process Improvement through Data Tracking and Analysis

FlexNet extends the power of Kanban concepts by providing data collection, automation, strict identification of parts and goods, rigorous automated production reporting to ERP and traceability to comply with industry and government regulations. FlexNet Machine Integrator data collection and integrated database historian enables Quality circles and TQM teams to continuously improve manufacturing processes. As an example, Apriso customers are using FlexNet Process Builder to quickly modify manufacturing processes by adding or reinforcing quality controls at a given process step right as a deviation is reported. When the problem is fully understood and fixed, an updated version of the process and related quality procedures are immediately released and distributed enterprise-wide through FlexNet Process Global Manager.

As practiced by best-in-class manufacturing enterprises, two proven contributions of software today are:

1. Operational improvement starting with visibility. Complex, demand-driven and decentralized manufacturing supply enterprises can no longer perform manual historization or reporting for data collection, control, analysis and processing.
2. Sustainable improvements over time need strict control of applied procedures, beyond what basic training and paper-based solutions can provide. Consistent application of software poka-yoke, step-by-step application of electronic check-lists or instructions and workflow conditions checking utilizing business rules for real-time execution can help your operations avoid many human mistakes, preventing errors throughout your manufacturing organization.

FlexNet is a proven offering being used by many best-in-class manufacturing organizations to address each of these issues, supporting and sustaining Lean and Six Sigma initiatives.