Not so many years ago, almost every manufacturing company employed 'progress chasers' – diligent individuals whose sole purpose was to expedite the passage of jobs through the production system. However, in an era increasingly dependent on transparency, traceability, optimised logistics and JIT manufacture, it became clear that a better and more automated form of control was required. Software, typically deployed in tandem with scanning and vision technology, has provided the answer.
Some say the only snag with software is that it needs to be kept up to date to optimise its use, particularly as many of the associated technologies are also advancing rapidly. While certain vendors issue regular updates between main releases, this can prove irksome and distract from core business. Occasionally, the best tactic is a complete revamp and this stance was recently adopted by Berkeley Miles (0141 440 1987), the developer of ProgressPlus software.
CLEANER, MORE FUNCTIONAL
According to director Tony MacBride, the company's redesign has created a system that is cleaner, more functional, and easier to install and use than ever before. The new version of ProgressPlus has been in full operation at a number of customer sites since the end of 2010 and implementation will continue this year, until the benefits are being enjoyed by the company's 1,600 concurrent users. "Unlike other companies' standard upgrades, ProgressPlus has been re-written from scratch to take into account the speed and intensity of technological change across the manufacturing sector," says Mr MacBride. "There is no value in cosmetic upgrades and, in order to give clients the service they need, we have completely redesigned ProgressPlus from the bottom up. This is the second complete revision of our system since it was first written in 1996."
ProgressPlus tracks and records all work undertaken along every step of the manufacturing process, from initial enquiry through to sales invoicing. The data on such items as material tracking for retrospective traceability, stock management and wastage is then applied to track, manage and develop the production process.
"High traceability is today a fundamental requirement in many of the sectors that we supply, such as oil and gas, aerospace, defence and medical," says Mr MacBride. "For instance, if a company is supplying a shaft to Rolls-Royce, it has to provide information on matters as diverse as the batch of material used, the treatments applied and even the name of the machinist."
Image: ProgressPlus shopfloor data collection
Among the recent converts to ProgressPlus is County Durham-based Blue Diamond Engineering, a subcontractor serving sectors such as transport and oil. The company's shopfloor operators use the system to direct their workflow and record issues relating to the processes they undertake, including time spent on job against budget, materials used, origination of materials and optimised efficiency of production through minimisation of waste.
"ProgressPlus has given us substantial amounts of real-time data on how our processes are performing and, as a result, much greater control over our business," says director John Hedley. "We can measure the efficiency of our resources and highlight machines that are not performing as we expect, and we get complete control over our stock, which is spread across a number of locations in our 27,000 ft2 factory. I can't fault the degree of traceability the system provides."
According to another vendor of production control software, PSL DataTrack (08456 345931), it's the sheer amount of paperwork associated with quotations, invoices, estimates, sales orders, purchase orders and delivery notes that are the real headache. With this in mind, DataTrack has made available its new integrated documentation storage facility to help users overcome the paperwork burden and avoid the high cost of purpose-built documentation systems, which operate independently of any other controls.
DOCUMENT STORAGE
With DataTrack documentation storage, each document has its own unique reference number and can be recalled instantly – for repeat business, for checking historic costs and prices, as well as for any other purpose.
For many manufacturers making the transition to production control software, the move from conventional spreadsheets can at first appear daunting. However, the potential rewards far outweigh preliminary reservations, as The Creative Group of Worthing can testify, following the adoption last year of real-time graphical scheduling software from Seiki Systems (01273 680411). The move has cut lead-times and improved on-time delivery, as well as effectively increased production capacity, without purchasing additional manufacturing equipment.
Image: High variety was a cause of problems at Creative Group – Seiki Systems provided the solution
"The high variety of complex work going through the workshop caused problems for us," says production manager, Kevin Williams. "We traditionally used spreadsheets to plan production, but even the best spreadsheet in the world can only deliver, say, two weeks ahead; anything longer and there are far too many variables to consider. We were spending up to 80 hours per week chasing our tails with production planning and still only managed on-time delivery of 52%. This also left no time to visit existing or potential customers."
Seiki Systems' scheduling software started running behind the scenes in June 2010, giving scheduled production information to the works foreman, initially as spreadsheets for continuity. Then, in October 2010, the software went live for everybody to see and use – from the top floor to the shopfloor.
"Since then, Seiki Systems has exposed the opportunities for improvement and provided top-level management with the time to focus on the things that can increase our capacity, making us more efficient," says Mr Williams. "This is being reflected by significant additional orders coming from our existing customers, because we are now 95% on-time with deliveries."
Also witnessing considerable gains from a new software installation is Aish Technologies, a designer and manufacturer of multi-function consoles, flat panel displays and cathodic protection systems, which used its ERP/MRP system to increase turnover by more than £5 million, with no increase in overheads or staff.
Aish Technologies used to process around 4,000 work orders a year. Now, since installing Jobshop production planning and control system from Planit (0116 272 5700) three years ago, the same number of staff manage 10,000.
GROW BUSINESS; NOT HEADCOUNT
"Our long-term solution was to say, if we're going to implement Jobshop, it had to provide the capacity to grow the business, without increasing overhead burden," says operations director and company secretary Nigel Barnes. "However, as we always utilise the Jobshop tools we have to the fullest possible extent, we've grown the business instead, increasing turnover to £12 million – and we haven't needed to increase staff."
Aish makes use of many Jobshop functions, including sales order processing, material requirements planning, purchase orders, work orders, scheduling, shopfloor data capture, materials control, costing and system management.
The latest release of Jobshop includes additional functionality, along with a new name (Javelin) and a significant step forward by moving to a 'relational database' platform in the form of MS SQL, which, according to Planit, allows better integration with other software.
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Plan of action
Version 4 of MyWorkPLAN job management software from Sescoi (0844 561 7014) was previewed at Industrie 2011 in Lyon during April. It includes capabilities for managers and sales teams to see the past and future activities for each potential customer, and view the collated documents related to each sales process.
Once the enquiry becomes an order, documentation is passed automatically to MyWorkPLAN's manufacturing module, providing engineers with a complete history of the project, enabling them to manage production and on-time delivery, greatly improving the overall service provided to each customer. Furthermore, a new timeline graphical feature in Version 4 of MyWorkPLAN allows the user to quickly find any document linked to a particular customer or project.
