Quality Increases When Awareness Exists

If you were a Butcher and you only sharpened your knife once every couple months, how effective would your tool be after even a few days, or weeks of use? The World’s best Butchers would Never skip a day without sharpening their blades. If you are a Manufacturer and your tool is “information”, and you are only updated of your plant floor operations periodically, how can you expect Quality to improve if even simple mistakes are passing you by? How are these issues affecting your initiatives for continuous improvement if you cannot gauge them? Are you leaking profits and taking a backseat to the growth of your competitors?

Software MES System

Is it because Manufacturers lack discipline, or because they lack access to the sharpening tools needed to stay in the know? We have all heard the adage that ‘knowledge is power’ because it is. Today more than ever leading Manufacturers are mandating to use web-based plant floor management technologies to keep them up-to-date. It is information, or more typically today the lack of info which leads to hindsight reflection and “hopefully” drives the best corrective actions forward (actions after the damage is already done/money is lost). Fortunately LEAN manufacturing tools in the form of web based software have become the choice for leading Automotive, Aerospace, and Heavy Machinery manufacturers to “really live continuous improvement.”

Downtime can be reduced dramatically when full-accountability comes into play; and the surprising bonus is it empowers the workforce! The quality and profit depleting pains of Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-utilized talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, and Extra-processing (“DOWNTIME”) are mitigated in a quantifiable way when full-accountability practices exist. By improving the Operational Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of OEM customers like Caterpillar, Navistar, Perkins and most recently Hyundai, PINpoint Information Systems has set the standard high with software solutions that maximize continuous improvement efforts. PINpoint’s web configurable plant optimization system has also played a major role at Lear, JCI, CalsonicKansei, AWTEC, Magna, Automodular, Arvin Meritor, Benteler and Hamilton Sundstrand on projects that supplied content to World leaders like Nissan, Boeing, Toyota, GM, Ford and Chrysler.

Imagine a “configurable” web-based plant floor management software that Process Engineers, Plant Managers, Supervisors and Operators can all use/interact with on the fly. A solution which provides the real-time and historical information required to succeed. Streamlining plant floor operations starts with the basics, e.g. is the Station Operator even present? Are they qualified/trained to run the job? Do they have the most up to date instructions (not just outdated plasticized paper instructions)? Are all the tools, materials and products present? And once going if they make an error, can we guarantee any mistakes will be caught in order to be resolved right away?

Quite simply, Quality increases when Awareness exists. Once you are able to have a real-time monitor and tracking of the processes then it only naturally follows that this accountability diminishes mistakes. It is the real-time notification of errors which allows for quick remedy and guarantees bad parts do not reach the next process step (let alone the customer). The whole team has a vested interest when full-accountability is lived. It is the ability to make changes to the line with little to no downtime that further reduces downtime (no more stoppages for PLC reprogramming). And it is the real-time indicators of OEE “for all to see” with live feedback of issues that leads to quick and decisive downtime preventative actions.

Continuous Improvement = Growth. PINpoint’s first-in-class web-based plant floor management software keeps continuous improvement relevant; a worthy discussion topic which can only lead to increased quality, competitiveness, and healthy organizational growth for manufacturing companies Worldwide. Please leave comments below, we would love to connect with like-minded Colleagues and continual improvement minded Companies to discuss how PINpoint Information Systems can help you. Or please contact me directly at your convenience, my name is Anthony Borges (aborges@pinpointinfo.com).