Manufacturers are surviving tough competition by streamlining their lean manufacturing initiatives through automated process tracking with Virtual Factory

Manufacturers today are turning toward lean manufacturing techniques to stay competitive. The Virtual Factory software solution empowers these manufacturers to take their lean initiatives to optimum levels with its automated process tracking, data logging, and user notification functions.

(PRWEB) April 2, 2004 -- Faced with tough price competition and increasing costs of doing business in the manufacturing sector, plant owners and managers are adopting lean manufacturing initiatives as a way to stay in business. Virtual Factory can be leveraged to improve the efficiency of lean techniques through its unique ability to directly monitor machine and manual processes in real time. By using Virtual Factory together with third-party data collection hardware, companies can supercharge their lean initiatives.

Proven lean techniques such as andon, kanban, matching cycle and takt times, and Poka-Yoke are assisting manufacturers to drastically improve their operating efficiency, which in turn leads to reduced costs. By lowering their cost of goods sold, these manufacturers are freeing up precious capital to invest in new equipment and to research new business opportunities. Countless manufacturers have implemented lean techniques and realized the following benefits:

·Reductions in inventory, delivery time, cycle time, and setup time
·Improvements in quality
·Increases in overall customer satisfaction
·Improvement of employee involvement, morale, and culture

With the addition of Virtual Factory to any lean initiative, a number of commonly implemented lean techniques are made even more efficient. The following is an overview of how Virtual Factory can improve the implementation of four of the most popular lean manufacturing techniques.

1. Andon
Traditional andon systems consist of a simple circuit between a set of user-operated switches located at a workstation, a multi-color stack light installed near the workstation, and a hardwired display board located in an easily viewable location on the plant floor. These systems give everyone on the plant floor instant visual recognition of all machine states. Virtual Factory can be inserted into this circuit to provide the following benefits over traditional andon systems:

·Display real time machine status from any computer monitor with an Internet connection and access the status from anywhere inside or outside of the manufacturing facility.
·The display screen is completely configurable, including: text string displayed, text size & color, background color, and number & shape of status boxes.
·The user can define rules for being notified directly of machine status changes. Notification can be relayed via mobile phone, text message, e-mail, or pager when critical events occur on the plant floor. The user can set up the system to send the user a video clip or still shot of the machine that experienced the alarm status.
·The software records the history of all status changes for machines / processes in a database. The user can view reports and histograms of all event data for a given time period. For example, the user can view the number and duration of all alarm events and materials out events for machine #24 from April 5 through April 14.

This additional intelligence can be used to maximize the value of any current andon system, further reducing the duration of costly unscheduled production downtime.

2. Electronic Kanban with Automatic Notification
Virtual Factory can automatically notify upstream suppliers or intra-company departments of stock outs or near stock outs in a Just-in-Time (JIT) fashion. Parts and materials bins can be automatically monitored using various types of sensors. User notification is carried out via e-mail, mobile phone, or system mailbox.

Electronic kanban offers a huge advantage over slower, more error-prone manual kanban systems. Manual systems depend upon workers to fill out kanban cards when bins are empty, and they rely upon upstream parts / materials suppliers regularly visiting each materials bin to check for stock-outs. With electronic kanban from Virtual Factory, suppliers anywhere in the world can be notified instantly of low stock levels.

3. Real Time Production Process Analysis
Virtual Factory can gather real-time production process data and use that data to gauge cycle types for a production process. Real-time data can be gathered from machine-activated switches, DNC-controlled machine interfaces, power supplies, user-operated switches, RFID tags, barcodes, and a number of other methods. Gathered process data can be used to:

·Optimize production process to match Takt and cycle times on the fly
·Find a bottleneck manufacturing cell among multiple cells in a production process in order to improve cycle times for the process
·Compare cycle times of multiple parallel production or work processes to determine which is the most efficient so that the entire facility can study the best practices of the workers / machines involved in those processes
·Calculate unit cost or other cost-related information automatically, based upon actual machine usage time
·Support preventative maintenance programs. The system can automatically notify the maintenance staff of machine maintenance needs based upon total machine run time, total number of repetitive actions performed by machine, or calendar-based considerations.

4. Poka-Yoke Support
Poka-Yoke is a lean manufacturing term referring to the setting up of simple mechanisms that reduce human operator error. Virtual Factory can be used in support of Poka-Yoke measures to automatically notify plant supervisors of situations whereby best practices are not being followed or of problem situations that arise. Actions taken by the system can include:

·Definition of problem to be addressed and suggested actions to be taken in terms of specific IF/THEN" scenarios
·Automatic monitoring of machine or work processes, with proper operation confirmed via regular automatic queries
·Automatic notification of users regarding suggested action to be taken when problem situations arise or when an aberration from normal operations is detected
·Logging of all process data for analysis at a later date

The automation of Poka-Yoke measures even further enhances productivity and efficiency by reducing the element of human error.

For more information about how you can put Virtual Factory to work for your companys lean manufacturing initiative or to learn more about lean manufacturing, please contact Jed Jones at jed@otc.net or at 1-949-981-7001.

About Orbit Technology Corporation
Founded by manufacturing automation experts in 1993, Orbit supplies factory automation, CAD/CAM and Web-based collaboration software solutions to its international base of clients.

Orbit employs a staff of highly educated, multi-lingual software solution experts who specialize in the manufacturing sector. The company's innovations continue to give its clients the power to access, manage, and control the data essential to their manufacturing success. Orbit maintains close ties with private industry and leading universities.