Legacy Technology is Not Serving Your Current Needs
Are you measuring OEE? Are you sure of that?
When you walk through your manufacturing area do you see someone manually recording production data?
Stop: do you see a clipboard?
If so, then you are seeing the manual recording of historical data at the very best. The data may eventually be analyzed, but it is happening well after the data gathering process, resulting in no real-time value and limited historical value.
You may believe that you are driving results with this data, but let’s face it, you are trying to drive while only looking in the rear view mirror.
Do you also see stockpiles of raw materials or work in progress waiting to be turned into revenue? How are you accounting for that extended time to cash where you convert that investment into revenue?
Blog: Are You Ready to Modernize? Ask Yourself These Five Questions
OEE is calculated by multiplying availability, performance and quality. Downtime is the severe vulnerability in manufacturing and the single largest challenge affecting OEE today.
Unplanned downtime is estimated to cost manufactures over $20 billion annually. Imagine a stack of $100 bills totaling $20 billion, it would reach well over twice the height of Mount Everest.
Legacy equipment is typically not well integrated or connected, often resulting in a machine or line operator without access to information that would allow them to make adjustments in real time that could help maximize the productivity of the machine or line.
Without access to the correct information, the operator is often left to guess at what needs to be changed based on what they think – often resulting in multiple stops and restarts that further reduce the OEE and introducing questionable quality when the stop and restart occurs further reducing productivity.
The lack of connectivity inherent in older equipment robs the operator of the ability to meet current productivity requirements. How much taller than Everest does that stack of $100 bills have to be before you are willing to take action?
Procrastination is Not a Strategy for Success
Even planned downtime costs manufacturers today. But what can you do about it? How can you provide access to meaningful and actionable information to the machine operator?
Waiting for the old system to die before considering an upgrade or migration to new technology guarantees continued opportunity losses and eventually higher risk of a failure of which there is no recovery.
Each minute a machine is not producing results in lost opportunity for added revenue and margin, it’s like allowing the termites to take up residence in the lumber yard and simply providing them more wood. Over an extended period, all you have left is saw dust. Ask yourself:
- How much productive time is lost during product change over or machine reconfiguration?
- How much time is lost when a photo-eye is dusty, or a proximity switch is misaligned?
- How do you know?
Your legacy control system does not provide the information that would allow you to know. Incorporating even small steps of modern technology can provide access to that very information allowing you to know.
For example, providing access to real time information and the ability to reconfigure the machine using software configurable devices, a six axis packaging machine was able to increase productivity by over 10%
Stop the bleeding now with a plan that includes the modernization of your control and information technology. The positive results of even a modest modernization effort can open the doors for additional investment to go even further.
Don’t Rely on Experience, Rely on Information
How many of your manufacturing and maintenance workers have retired in the last three to five years? How many will retire in near future? How much of what they do is by intuition?
Are you sure?
Current estimates are that nearly one-third of the maintenance and manufacturing operations support staff in many industries will retire in the next three to five years.
When they walk out the door, they carry with them the tribal knowledge of what it took to make things run in your plant and process.
How will their replacements know when things are running well? What information will they have to base those conclusions on? How will that information be delivered to the new generation of worker who has grown up with a “smart phone”?
Let’s face it, your current and future success will rely on this information savvy generation.
Failing to take advantage of their talent and skills is like inviting even more termites into the lumber yard. Modernizing your manufacturing and processes to provide access to actionable, relevant information will be your differentiator and your success.
It’s time to contact your local Rockwell Automation professional to learn how to unlock the information in your plant.
Let’s talk about what your people are doing, how your investment in raw materials and work in progress can be streamlined, and how your access to information can allow you to stop feeding the termites.
