For many manufacturing plants, the constant miscommunication between systems and departments is a scenario that is all too familiar. With so many moving parts within the facility, it’s inevitable that someone will miss an update and be misaligned on the latest plans.
To ensure a smooth and accurate production process, it’s critical for all systems within a complex manufacturing plant to work together. In the most efficient cases, each program routinely and automatically shares information with other key tools in the facility.
This kind of high-level collaboration can save your team valuable time and keep all data current across the organization. There are many specific benefits to using a shared system of programs, but perhaps most importantly, digital collaboration can boost overall productivity at manufacturing plants by up to 30%, according to research from McKinsey.
Data Sharing Leads to Faster Problem Identification
For decades, manufacturing has been changing and becoming increasingly technology focused. As a result, plants are incorporating many kinds of advanced software into their daily operations, and these tools are gathering more data than ever. Many facilities today use various software for every aspect of manufacturing, from inventory management to resource planning. When used over time, these tools can offer a wealth of information about the current state of the plant. The data collected can help employees identify inefficiencies and weak spots much earlier, as long as the information is harnessed effectively.
Unfortunately, raw data isn’t always insightful when presented on its own. For example, from one set of data, you may learn that a machine in your process experienced lower throughput. If you can’t connect those statistics to the total production time or the amount of labor on hand that day, the information lacks important context. However, if you can access all the available tools and review multiple data points simultaneously, it can give your team a full picture of the plant’s current strengths and weaknesses.
Collaboration Encourages Smart Decision-Making
Once you have a better idea of the pain points your plant is experiencing, your team can use those insights to make better, more informed decisions across the organization. Before seeing the full, data-integrated picture, your leadership may have incorrectly assumed which investment would benefit the plant most – say, a new production line. In reality, the collaborative data may reveal that updating current machinery or hiring more employees would provide a bigger boost in productivity and increase revenue. Without that valuable information, the business would not have invested optimally or received the highest return possible.
How to Create a Collaborative Framework
Though there are many benefits to sharing information across each tool in the plant, it’s not always a simple process. Many plants have already ingrained themselves within existing systems that may not support collaboration. As a first step, we recommend implementing a scheduling tool that syncs with all existing systems and gathers information on internal processes. It’s especially helpful if the tool facilitates real-time communication with employees, so everyone in the plant can quickly access any changes to plant operations. From there, your organization can ensure any other new software acquired over time will work with your existing data hub to create a fully integrated system of information.
Our advanced planning and scheduling tool, VirtECS®, can integrate with many other manufacturing programs to provide a data-rich, seamless experience for our users. While spreadsheet-based models of scheduling often become cumbersome and accessible only to their creators, VirtECS® can be shared and used across entire organizations. Our web-based module, VirtECS® Symphony, helps distribute the finished and optimized schedule throughout the plant in real time to keep all employees up to date. For more information on VirtECS® and VirtECS® Symphony, explore our overview guide.
