May 1996 € Volume 6 € Number 5

Leveraging Data To Its Fullest Potential

Data finds meaning by the context in which you place it. Data collected at one point in your business processes can be leveraged to its full potential when it is integrated and made available as part of an enterprisewide solution.

By Rick Walters

The value of automated data acquisition has grown exponentially with the increase in global competition and accelerated rate of change in market dynamics. According to the CSC Index, information system managers rank organizing and utilizing data as their number three priority. (This is closely aligned with their first two priorities: reengineering business processes through information technology and aligning information systems in support of corporate goals.)

But 10 years of market prognostications to the contrary, automated data acquisition technology has still not reached its true potential in manufacturing. And in many sites that have implemented some type of automatic data collection, there is a too-common complaint that the information is not being leveraged across the entire enterprise to its fullest potential. This is despite well-published documented case examples of cost savings, improved data accuracy and increased productivity in companies that do.

Supervisory control strategy is the key
Open, standards-based supervisory control systems technology can provide the vital foundation to ensure broad-based information sharing across the enterprise. Supervisory control systems that integrate with virtually all factory floor devices -- from programmable logical controllers (PLCs) to scales to bar code scanners-and that can share that information in real time with a broad array of enterprise-level decision support systems, from MRP II to quality, costing and financial systems, ensures the greatest return on investment for all technologies within a comprehensive data acquisition architecture.

Manufacturers must first conduct a thorough analysis of their operations to determine three critical issues. First, what data is critical to running their business and providing strategic, competitive benefit? Second, where is that data generated and where does it reside within the enterprise? And third, how can data gathered and collected at one point in the enterprise be leveraged to the greatest benefit within all other functional areas of the business?

Building a solid foundation
In the fiercely competitive professional cosmetics, hair and skin care products market, Matrix Essentials ascended from start-up to dominance in its niche by adhering to the basic principles of commitment to quality and honoring commitments to its customers. Success measured in double-digit annual growth, however, proved a strain on Matrix's production and distribution management systems to the extent that, after 14 years of business, it needed to upgrade if it was to ensure continued high levels of customer satisfaction.

Matrix embarked on designing and implementing a comprehensive information technology/automation strategy that would provide a solid foundation for continued growth through the 1990s and into the next century. The central objective was to replace a manual paper-based control system with a computer-based enterprise system. Its manufacturing control system (MCS) project was designed to tie factory floor production tightly to distribution to provide complete supply chain management. Crucial in making it work was the supervisory control system that linked control equipment and bar code technology on the plant floor to the business planning systems to ensure support for both production planning and distribution management requirements.

An end to paper-based procedures
Until January 1994, production management was entirely paper-based. Paper work orders directed the shift activities of the 20 individual lines in its two production buildings. Line clerks overseeing three or four lines each were responsible for manually tabulating the percentage of orders filled during the shift as well as calculating both associated labor and material costs.

Production sheets were turned in at the end of each shift and were audited by an administrative clerk before being sent to the inventory control department. Typically, it took 48 hours for order status information to get entered into the company's business system, resulting in perpetual imbalances in inventory. In addition to being slow, dependence on paper-based reporting was hugely labor-intensive and prone to error.

Further, there was almost no real-time visibility to the production floor in terms of order status and capacity. There was also little in the way of historical archiving of data for analysis and decision support. Questions regarding productivity, line efficiency and material usage all had to be manually researched and analyzed.

Matrix developed a three-tiered computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) architecture for replacing these cumbersome, over-burdened procedures. In its scheme for the manufacturing control system, the supervisory control layer played a crucial role, serving as the CIM information hub that tied the automation equipment on the plant floor to front-office business systems.

Benefits of MCS
The MCS project succeeded in achieving its primary objectives: putting batch information on every bottle for product tracking and recall and putting bar codes on every box and pallet for productivity optimization in the automated warehouse. Additionally, the base information generated by the system supports a variety of other functions crucial to maintaining a keen competitive edge.

Today, the director of manufacturing operations has real-time visibility to the entire plant available at his fingertips on the workstation at his desk. The system interface depicts the status of all open orders on every line. With simple mouse clicks, the director of manufacturing can drill down through successive levels of detail to review the status of work orders and the rate of fill for any particular line to make timely decisions regarding resources and scheduling.

On-hand balances of inventory are also more accurate and timely. Inventory records in its MRP II system are updated every two hours by the system. The onerous task line clerks faced in having to manually compute associated labor and usage has been eliminated entirely. The responsibility for documenting downtime has also been greatly streamlined with the use of bar code technology for scanning reason codes, freeing operators to focus on getting lines up and running again as quickly as possible.

Matrix has only begun to leverage the detailed production line data collected and passed to the system for performing analysis to determine yield, downtime and scrap rates. This data will prove invaluable over time as Matrix seeks continual process improvements in throughput, line utilization and productivity.

In October of 1993, Matrix opened its fully automated, high-rise distribution center. The construction of the new center was designed to be an integral part of its overall enterprise system, tightly integrated with its new MCS project. MCS directly supports the tremendous efficiency of the automated distribution center through the bar code labels MCS generates for each case and pallet that comes out of production.

When pallets of boxed product are received from production into the warehouse, the automated onboard crane scanners read the bar code label on each pallet to determine the precise stockkeeping location. The automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) directs the cranes to the exact location in aisles that are 80 feet high and 500 feet long. Keyed by the bar code labels generated by the system, the AS/RS is capable of dispatching more than 100 pallets an hour.

Long-term, Matrix is looking at linking the system to the batch compounding area where product formulations are created, integrating recipe management and raw material control into its enterprise planning system.

Bakery company automates processes
A bakery company had minimal automation technology in place for recipe management. Batch recipes were mixed by hand, using paper-based recipes. Bulk ingredients were acquired typically in costly 100-pound sacks. Since the mixing procedures were done manually, there was no reliable means for an accurate post-production recipe audit.

In the early 1980s, the company decided it wanted to implement a more efficient method of operations. Automation technology offered an obvious solution. The bakery contracted the development and implementation of a software-based control system that would manage and control the supply of bulk ingredients in batch recipe preparation.

The recipe editor/user interface was designed to be simple and user-friendly. Recipe ingredients, quantities, procedure sequences, and times were expressed in common English, with the system capable of containing up to 50 discrete steps. For example, a simple set of procedural instructions might be expressed as: "Add 1,000 pounds of sugar; slow mix for 60 seconds."

The automated material delivery system was engineered by another vendor who specializes in material handling systems. Bulk storage silos for holding raw ingredients were connected by enclosed tubing with an array of smaller storage bins positioned directly over one of the two dozen stainless steel tanks where batch recipes were mixed.

Programmable logic controllers connected via a backbone system network were used to regulate the flow of material from the bulk silos as well as the smaller storage bins.

Industrial-hardened user terminals located next to the mixing tanks displayed real-time recipe status to the batch process operators. In addition, there were four process graphic display screens located in the production control room. These screens provided a real-time graphical representation of the entire system, so that operators and engineers could "view" the status of all operations moment-to-moment, as necessary. This real-time view of operations enabled them to take corrective action to resolve potential problems before they became critical.

With this system in place, operators mixing batch recipes were able to request individual recipes on their terminals. Based on the recipe instructions regarding ingredients, amounts and sequenced procedures, the operators could step through the recipes using the terminals to display correct next-step procedures, as well as to execute the commands for those procedures.

The batch recipe management software provided the system's intelligence for coordinating, sequencing and scheduling the execution of the requested procedures. The system could properly sequence priorities if simultaneous commands placed competing demands on a limited resource. In addition, the system also contained "rules of operation" for managing multiple steps within a recipe that could run in parallel.

For example, a recipe might call for 1,000 pounds of sugar and 1,000 pounds of flour. Rules of operation defined in the system might permit the sugar to be weighed and delivered. Then, while the sugar was in process of being weighed, the request for flour could be initiated, starting the weighing of flour using a separate scale. In this case, if rules of operation permitted, an operator wouldn't necessarily have to wait for the first procedure to be completed before requesting the second.

In addition, the batch recipe management system was also designed so that acceptable ranges could be set on the quantities of raw material. For example, if the actual weighed amount of an ingredient went over the upper limit, the system automatically flagged an error message for the operator. The operator would then have to make a decision to resolve the situation: e.g., whether to proceed and release the ingredient for mixing or route the material to a scrap tank.

Benefits from automated batch recipe management
The benefits of this phase of the project were profound. Material no longer had to be purchased in expensive sacked units, but instead, could be acquired in bulk in railroad tank car increments. This netted a savings equivalent to more than $1 per bag. More important to ensuring product conformance, the system provided a thorough, documented audit trail for every procedure that was executed. And the recording of the procedural steps executed was entirely automated, ensuring accuracy and completeness.

The importance of a documented audit trail cannot be overemphasized. With an integrated systems strategy, an electronic batch record can be automatically generated and maintained indefinitely. The electronic batch record can provide detailed information on all ingredients, steps and procedures that affect variable attributes of a finished product. Typically, the information contained in the record includes the type and measured quantity of a raw ingredient; supplier; lot number; date; operator ID; process steps; operation settings; and QA test results, among others. Historically, this electronic batch record has been of considerable legal importance to process manufacturers in both the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Packaging line conformance
The second phase of the bakery's project focused on the preparation and packaging of the individual serving-size unit of each product.

The bakery client selected a weight control application to manage this second-step process. This system is designed to monitor and control either weight or volume, but was used in this implementation to control weight exclusively. This phase of the project was tightly integrated with the batch recipe management system to ensure conformance throughout the entire bakery production cycle.

After the batch recipes for doughs and icings are prepared, they are dispensed to conveyors that are integrated with the execution of the next procedure; i.e., the baking and adding of icing and toppings. The amount dispensed is regulated by filler heads that are set to variable parameters, permitting only the prescribed measure be deposited. To ensure conformance to the recipe, this dispensing process must be closely monitored. Icing and toppings, for example, are typically higher in calories -- and cost -- than doughs. Therefore, the doughs must be weighed before and after baking; then the product must be weighed again after the icing is added; then weighed again after additional toppings are added to obtain discrete weights at each step.

Many food processors collect and record these weights manually. But even with the most diligent workers, errors are inevitable. Opportunity for error exists in weighing, in recording weights on paper forms, and then keystroking the data into computerized databases. Sometimes the required number of samples to be taken can also be compromised by inattention or carelessness.

The bakery's weight control application ties the sampling scales to the weight control system. The on-line, real-time system provides variance reporting to the operator terminals in the bakery production area. When the sample weights fall outside the prescribed parameters, the system flags a warning message to the operator. The operator monitoring the terminal can then identify where the weights are falling out of spec and adjust the appropriate filler head. Operators can set sampling frequency and variance settings without shutting down the process line. This enables them to more closely monitor a particular filler head that is producing out of tolerance items without constricting throughput.

All sampling data collected by the system is automatically recorded to the database. Management can review and analyze the data using statistical quality control software at periodic intervals, whether within a shift, at the end of shift, end of the day, week or month. This information is extremely useful for a variety of purposes: costing analysis, line performance analysis, product conformance analysis and others.

Integrating data throughout the enterprise
Data finds meaning by the context in which you place it. Data collected at one point in your business processes can be leveraged to its full potential when it is integrated and made available as part of an enterprisewide solution via flexible supervisory control system technology.

Real-time decision support, financial accounting, total supply chain management and business process reengineering are just a sampling of the ways you can leverage data collected on the plant floor. And supervisory control system technology has proven it can play a vital role in ensuring the context for your production data is as broad and wide as is necessary in order for your company to remain competitive in today's fast-paced markets.

Rick Walters is president of Bradley Ward Systems, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.

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