Virtual Plant Models Add Flexibility and Efficiency for Manufacturers

by Kelsey H | Oct 20, 2020 | Planning & Scheduling

If you work in manufacturing, you may have discovered that even small challenges can require systematic production changes. As a leader at your company, you’ve also felt how overwhelming it is to sort through the many factors involved in finding a solution. Now imagine you had a way to outline every scenario and instantly complete all the calculations needed to determine the right course of action. What would this kind of access to information mean for your plant’s efficiency and productivity?

This strategic advantage is possible through virtual plant modeling. Virtual plant models best show their value in the identification of potential process improvements and schedule changes in critical situations. Once your system can understand the many variables in your plant’s current workflow, you can then test possible outcomes from a range of different adjustments. Below, we’ll get into how a virtual plant model works and the many circumstances where manufacturers may find it beneficial.

Key Benefits to a Virtual Model

Virtual plant models can be helpful in a wide array of situations, from the everyday changes you make to the emergency situations when you need a solution immediately. Rather than making a guess on the most effective solution or spending hours working with a spreadsheet-based analysis, a virtual plant model can produce fast, accurate, and unique answers.

Because virtual plant models can run automatically, they significantly reduce the number of mistakes in your plant’s operating schedule. Plant models eliminate human assumptions about factors like equipment or materials and will base all outcomes purely on the variables added into the modeler. Even if the user has minimal training or programming knowledge, the system will do all the complicated math analysis itself, thus cutting down on human error. Using precise data, the virtual plant model creates an accurate schedule to help you find the most efficient choice every time. In the end, it produces an effective process schedule in critical situations for anyone who may need it.

Emergency Adjustments

When dealing with changes and shortages due to an emerging crisis, manufacturers need a fast and flexible solution to address many rapidly changing variables without shutting down production. For example, in the aftermath of a hurricane, raw materials shipments may be delayed, and employees could have trouble getting to the plant. For most manufacturers, bringing your entire operation to a standstill can be devastating. A virtual plant model quickly adapts to these kinds of situations and identifies a path to the maximum level of operations possible.

As the variables within your plant change, a user will simply make the corresponding adjustments within the model to reflect your lower inventory level, smaller employee shifts or a wide range of other variables which might be disrupted. The software can then analyze your changes and produce a new workflow based on these adjustments. As the user inputs the variables and identifies bottlenecks within the system, you’ll be able to analyze possible adjustments and determine which solution allows for the most efficient production. On the other hand, you may also find that you can’t move forward without a material you’re missing, and you’ll be able to re-shift production to focus on other products in the pipeline.

Day-to-Day Efficiency Improvement

During normal operations, virtual plant models can also tell you which of your day-to-day process gives your plant the highest returns. If you run slightly different schedules each day, you can compare the outcomes to determine which days were most efficient. The model can also account for incoming demands in the coming days, such as an additional employee or delayed material shipment, and ready the schedule to best handle the changes. With this data at your fingertips, you can identify different variables to address to continually boost your plant’s overall output. As you use this schedule that maximizes efficiency and minimizes downtime, you’ll find that over time it can drive better profit margins for your business.

Long-Term Planning

With a flexible virtual plant model, testing out potential improvements and investments into your facility becomes simple. If you’re considering making a major investment into your plant, virtual plant modeling allows you to create multiple what-if models with each of your investment possibilities to see where your money will be used most effectively. For example, if you plan to put $10 million into one piece of equipment, your model can tell you whether or not more product will be created faster. Based on the outcome, you can either decide it’s a smart investment or continue looking for other bottlenecks in the system that should be addressed first.

A virtual plant model of this kind lives within a manufacturing planning & scheduling software model editor. To create the model, a user will input their plant’s unique specifications to create a full description of the facility. This includes pieces of equipment, shift schedules, the materials used to create the product, etc. Once the current model is set, the user can begin changing variables to identify the best adjustments or improvements as discussed above.

Virtual plant modeling is one of the unique features of VirtECS planning & scheduling software. Everything within the model can be customized, creating a unique and specific tool designed to help manufacturers make well-informed decisions. VirtECS differs from other modeling software because of the precision of the resource modeling. From there, it’s able to analyze every material and process available at a plant, along with any adjustments scheduled for the future. To find out how a virtual plant model would work at your plant, download our guide here.

Benefits of Communication Coordination for Manufacturers

by admin | Sep 2, 2020 | Planning & Scheduling

In our experience, coordinated and open communication has been one of the key factors in improving efficiency at manufacturing plants. However, it’s also one of the most overlooked factors. For the rest of your manufacturing processes to work as effectively as possible, there has to be an improved level of communication. We’ll tell you our top 3 reasons why and how to make it happen at your company below.

#1: Keep Employees Engaged.

Employee engagement and productivity is an ongoing problem for manufacturers. According to a recent study from Gallup, only 25 percent of all manufacturing employees would say that they are engaged while at work; that’s 8 percent lower engagement than the national average. Disengaged employees are much more likely to make mistakes and otherwise work inefficiently. The same Gallup study found disengaged employees cost US employers more than $400 billion in lost productivity every year.

One way to start combatting the issue of engagement is to open lines of communication and give employees easier access to necessary information. Simple actions like publishing the plant’s schedule and creating communication channels shows your team that everyone’s role is valuable to the overall success of the plant. It helps each person understand that they’re more than a cog in a wheel and gives them a sense of purpose that leads to an increased ownership in their work. According to a study from researchers at Michigan State University and University of Minnesota, employees’ sense of ownership for their job is positively associated with both commitment to the organization and improved work performance.

#2: Facilitate Feedback

At many plants, communication between different teams, departments or shifts can be challenging. The buildings are huge, making it difficult to track down individuals, and many employees may not have easy access to a desk or computer at work. The equipment can be noisy and everyone is busy, so it’s not always easy to hop on a computer and send an email when an issue pops up. Without an open dialogue between employees, more errors are missed and problems pile up, eating your team’s valuable time.

Facilitating clearer and more frequent communication between employees at all levels can help create a more cohesive work environment throughout the plant. If everyone at your facility is able to comment on the plant’s schedule and communicate about issues that pop up, employees can point out concerns that are often overlooked, coordinate efforts to address issues and bring new approaches to the forefront. Ultimately, frequent two-way communication makes your whole team’s job easier and keeps the flow of work moving efficiently.

#3: Boost Your Bottom Line.

As we mentioned earlier, employee disengagement is an expensive drain on your business, costing US employers billions of dollars every year. Those breakdowns in productivity result in supply chain mistakes, excessive changeover time and costly remakes. When trying to keep costs as low as possible, these can cause a real problem for manufacturers. However, when communication is more streamlined, it can result in big savings. According to business consulting firm Flint Strategic Partners, open lines of communication have been found to improve manufacturers’ bottom line by 10 percent or more.

Using VirtECS Symphony To Simplify Communication

You may place communication as a priority at your plant, but it can still be challenging to determine how you’ll keep improving it. That is where VirtECS Symphony comes in. VirtECS Symphony is an amazing communication benefit to our scheduling software for advanced manufacturing. It’s a web-based module that allows everyone in the plant to easily access the VirtECS schedule. We’ve worked with clients who have chosen to display the schedule to hundreds of daily users on screens throughout their facility and others who let employees check it on their own digital devices. Each person can toggle between the plant’ overall schedule and their own individual piece of the process, which will help everyone stay fully informed.

In addition, VirtECS Symphony is customizable, expandable and continually updated to keep up with development within the VirtECS technology. It follows industry standard security protocols and is able to integrate customer authentication and usernames to help track comments appropriately. The comment system is also an extremely powerful bidirectional communication mechanism that can embed XML and JSON to power features such as field schedule editing suggestions and evaluation of schedule compliance.

To learn more about how VirtECS Symphony can coordinate distributed schedule activity and enable better communication in your company, shoot us a message at info@combination.com or download our Symphony overview using the form below.

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