When Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites hit the Internet in the 2000s, they completely changed the way people communicated with each other online. In addition, they gave businesses an avenue to gain insights from their audience and provide important news updates instantly.
Creating accessible communication channels has long been a challenge for manufacturing plants. In a busy and complex manufacturing environment, employees are often unable to receive real-time updates through traditional methods like email or word-of-mouth. When a new shift comes in, schedule changes and other important adjustments can get lost in the shuffle.
That’s where a tool like VirtECS Symphony comes in. It’s become known in the industry as “manufacturing social media,” because while sites like Facebook facilitate conversations among the general public, VirtECS Symphony helps plants improve communicate between departments to streamline production across the site. By utilizing this kind of tool, manufacturers can benefit from several key features and facilitate smart manufacturing to improve their site’s operations.
Speed Up the Exchange of Information
One of the first benefits manufacturers often notice immediately with VirtECS Symphony is a faster and smoother exchange of current information to support plants’ smart manufacturing efforts. VirtECS Symphony will publish the current production schedule to employees’ devices and screens across the plant, while also allowing for comments and messages between users. With the VirtECS Symphony platform, everyone on site can stay up to date on schedule changes as soon as they’re published, which results in more accurate production runs. Schedule updates are reflected on VirtECS Symphony in near real-time, and new comments are refreshed automatically to ensure no messages will be missed. In fact, we’ve even heard one of our clients refer to the tool as a “running production meeting,” thanks to its ability to continuously communicate many of the topics typically covered in those meetings.
Improve Coordination Between Groups
Using manufacturing social media, plants can also facilitate communication between groups or departments that may not normally interact. When a user makes a comment on the schedule, any employee located throughout the plant can see the message instantly and adjust as needed. Without a communication platform like VirtECS Symphony, it could take much longer to deliver the updates to every department. Comments and messages can also be viewed across shifts, so the next employees coming in can immediately begin working with the most current information without having to comb through emails or written notes. With increased coordination among every group in the plant, your organization can avoid costly delays and wasted product batches.
Increase Accuracy & Efficiency
Given that your site will have more people who can view and comment on your production schedule, there will also be more opportunities for those people to catch errors or potential improvements. Without manufacturing social media, the production schedule may only be reviewed by the planning and scheduling team. However, if you use VirtECS Symphony to publish the schedule, it will get reviewed by employees from every corner of the plant. Helping more people get eyes on the schedule will make it more likely for someone to catch errors, should a problem arise. Providing a platform to get input from other departments also presents an opportunity for different groups to notice opportunities to lower costs or increase run rate that may not have been identified otherwise.
Provide Transparency and Impact to Employees
Manufacturing social media also provides other benefits in addition to operational efficiency and accuracy. Using VirtECS Symphony and other tools to improve communication can also impact employees’ overall job satisfaction. Giving everyone at the plant access to the production schedule and providing them with an opportunity to share input helps each employee feel like a valuable member of the team. According to a Qualtrics report, employees who are highly engaged in their work are 87% more likely to stay with their current company. If your organization wants to limit turnover and keep employees who produce quality work, it’s essential to help them feel involved.
If you’re interested in learning more about what a manufacturing social media tool like VirtECS Symphony can do to benefit your plant, download our short guide for more details.
