Leveraging Smart Manufacturing Technology for Business Success
// October 16, 2017 //
Today's blog post is courtesy of a valued Paper-Less partner - Joseph L. Brown, Vice President of Sales for Business Computer Technologies, Inc.
Over the past 30 years and continuing through today, manufacturing businesses have always followed the three rules of operating: better, faster and cheaper. By following these three rules, I believe businesses can always find ways to improve their bottom lines. As smart manufacturing technologies advance, manufacturing businesses need to find ways to differentiate themselves for competitive advantage. The days of manufacturing businesses saying to themselves, “We are making money now so things must be OK,” are gone. I find many manufacturing businesses making money on some product lines while wrapping five dollar bills around others.
The Paper-Less MES solutions give manufacturing businesses the opportunity to dive deeper into their production operations and find those areas of weakness that are dragging potential profits out of their current business models. Business Computer Technologies and Paper-Less have teamed up to help manufacturing businesses achieve these smart manufacturing goals. Let me give you some examples of ways manufacturers are using the Paper-Less MES solutions for achieving the key manufacturing operations goals:
- Better Now Equals Improved Quality
The Paper-Less MES suite of tools includes an integrated quality management system. Using a holistic MES system that includes quality management as part of the suite is a cost-effective and straightforward means of quickly reducing quality non-conformance and the need for rework. Paper-Less recently helped a metal fabrication company to move all of their paper-based quality test and reporting processes into the digital MES quality management application. Quality non-conformance is now being discovered immediately which has significantly helped improve product quality and customer satisfaction.
- Faster Now Equals Accelerating Production Time
The Paper-Less MES system accelerates the velocity of production information flow and enables multi-dimensional communication with ERP or other shop floor software. The Paper-Less production operations management notifications enable immediate actions for times when notifications alert that production activities are not adhering to or achieving the production plan. The Paper-Less Digital Shop Packets provide workers the supporting information needed to produce the right product, the right way, at the right time. All information typically found in a paper-based shop packet or traveler is made available online and is accessible to production workers including items such as manufacturing order details, setup instructions, procedural information, engineering drawings and instructional videos.
- Cheaper Now Equals Reducing Costs of Manufacturing
Manufacturing companies looking to reduce costs of manufacturing should now consider looking to MES technology rather than taking measures such as closing plants or downsizing staff.
“With the implementation of the Paper-Less MV2 solution, we immediately realized a reduction in manufacturing costs. Based on our analysis implementing this first phase of our project created annual savings of $135,000 in labor and materials,” said Eric Schmidt, Vice President of Operations for Western States Envelope & Label.
These are just a few of the ways I believe BCT and Paper-Less can help your company be more successful. If you say you can’t afford it. I say you can’t afford not to do it. Let BCT and Paper-Less maximize your company’s ability to succeed.
