Business Intelligence makes data driven decision-making possible at large scale. Using self-service analytics capability, the business leaders can tweak different parameters and simulate different scenarios before decision making. With this, they are better equipped to draw useful insights and make better informed decisions with higher probability of success.

Importance of Business Intelligence in manufacturing

Availability of technologies to source data at low cost from equipment and IT applications makes manufacturing, one of the most suited industry for applying BI. Data is already being measured and recorded in real-time using IoT devices, PLC, SCADA, MES, ERP, CRM and other platforms. Most of the times, this data collected is used only for general operations purpose. Getting insights from data is an area most organizations have not really looked at. Processing data efficiently can unlock a lot of value and can lead to great tangible monetary benefits. For example, in FMCG, processing quality data using advanced analytics and re-aligning process in real-time can lead to big savings by avoiding potential rejections and rework.

Business Intelligence tools convert text and numbers into images which are more readable and comprehendible.

Here are few applications of BI tools in manufacturing –

Inventory Management – Without complete visibility of products on hand, it may be challenging to minimize inventory costs without compromising service levels. BI dashboards take various data points like change in supply and demand, product obsolescence and other factors into consideration and help the manufacturers optimize safety stock, assess reordering point, control inventory costs, avoid out-of-stocks and improve the service levels.

Supply Chain Management – BI tools can help the supply chain managers get more insight into routes, carriers, wait times, freight delivery status and payments. It helps in finding more opportunities and do better negotiations. Tracking KPIs like OTIF helps identify delivery issues in real-time and address them.

When combined with Advanced Analytics, BI can solve even more complex problems like the following –

1. ĚýEnergy Analytics – Energy cost is a major chunk of conversion cost in any manufacturing unit. There is a need to optimize performance of utilities like boiler, chiller and other energy intensive units. In absence of insights, the plant operators are more focused on meeting production targets than on optimization. 91¶¶Ňő has developed an advanced analytics-based solution on PTC Thingworx to address this challenge. The solution predicts optimum efficiency and prescribes operating parameters to achieve that. It leads to a 5-20% savings in energy costs.
2. Product Quality Analytics – 91¶¶Ňő helped a global FMCG giant to collect data from existing PLC & SCADA systems, apply artificial intelligence, make data models and show meaningful KPIs in real-time on responsive dashboards using which the operators could control the quality of products being manufactured. This has led to quality yield improvements of 1-2%.

Recommendations –
Now before you decide on your business intelligence tool, here are some points to keep in mind –

• Involve both Business management and IT team in developing BI tools
• Decide right KPIs from start
• Build database, don’t use data directly from different sources because different sources may have different benchmarks
• Select BI tools that allow customized report delivery and scheduling
• Develop BI tools which can work on different devices including smartphones to make it more useful
• Don’t delay the development thinking you don’t have enough data. Most companies already have enough data to start with
• In conclusion, BI tools are a must for manufacturing organizations today. It makes the whole process faster, optimized and transparent. The investments made are lesser compared to the long-term gains.

Author:

Nishant Jain
Associate Consultant, Business Consulting Group
91¶¶Ňő

Reference:

1. Energy Advisor from 91¶¶Ňő. Leveraging IOT and Data Analytics for Efficient and Greener Manufacturing

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One thing that leading manufacturing companies did during their low demand days is that they invested in preparing for the future. During the economic recession of 2008-2009, forward looking manufacturing companies invested substantially in training and development of their employee’s skills. A major portion of the workforce time was invested in driving continuous improvement projects, conducting trials, process innovations, etc., that were typically difficult to manage during business as usual scenario. Clearly, these companies benefited from their investments and were able to scale up quickly compared to competitors. The importance and role of operational excellence tools like Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, TPM and TQM in enhancing the maturity of the manufacturing sector can neither be questioned nor overlooked. Over the past few years, adoption of Information Technology in the manufacturing sector has increased significantly and has driven the continuous improvement journey.

Again, forward-looking companies would like to use the current scenario to accelerate their Digital Manufacturing journey—but the business situation doesn’t support it. While a few companies have been able to manage and continue the digital transformation journey, most manufacturers have put their plans on hold on account of financial constraints. As markets are slowly opening across the globe, normalcy will take time to return Most CXOs believe and understand the importance of investment in IT at this point of time but uncertainties in the economic scenario, cash flow challenges and short term returns in IT investments make them inclined to favor a delay in their Digital Manufacturing plans.

91¶¶Ňő understands the importance of technology in a manufacturing setup and has accordingly modified solutions and offerings to address some of the challenges of a CXO. In this blog, we talk about our 4D-MES framework that can be leveraged by companies to manage their ongoing Manufacturing Execution System rollouts or start the MES journey that has been put on hold. The 4D MES Framework allows manufacturers to extract maximum value at optimal cost from their MES landscape. The framework optimizes cost in the current program and generates additional value from the existing solution without new capex or major investments. The dimensions of the 4D framework are as follows:

• Domain Leadership – By pre-building industry templates leveraging our access to manufacturing plants of our parent company ITC Limited and utilizing the knowledge of domain experts, we reduce MES implementation lead time by almost 30% and help realize return on investment in a much shorter duration in addition to implementing industry best practices.
• Depth of Technology Expertise – Our Technology Assessment Framework is used for improving MES components utilization and to extract maximum value from the existing MES landscape. Automation toolkit (DevOps & Test Automation) helps automate the end-to-end MES lifecycle resulting in development and deployment effort optimization and business disruption reduction.
• Delivery Efficiency – The current team structure is designed and equipped to work remotely at 100 percent efficiency, helping us design, develop, test and deploy solutions even in a scenario where mobility is severely restricted. The team structure leverages the concept of shared resources to improve resource utilization and optimize overall development cost.
• Disruptive Business Model – The proprietary assessment framework helps quantify benefits from an MES implementation and enables us to work on commercials linked to an outcome-based model. Subscription-based pricing linked to the number of users and factories, variable bandwidth-based support engagements and commercials linked to outcomes help manufacturers reduce the overall initial investment and risks associated with a milestone-based payment model.

Recent surveys and articles by leading consulting companies highlight that technology will play a vital role for manufacturing and supply chains in the post COVID-19 era. CXOs believe in its importance and commit to its adoption but, with few exceptions, also agree that their digital journey is not well funded. The implication is clear: organizations should leverage the innovative and compelling business models and differentiated solutions being offered by technology companies to accelerate their digital manufacturing journey and prepare for the post COVID-19 era.

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Using RPA, manufacturing organizations can achieve several magnitudes of improvement in efficiency, productivity, speed to market, customer delight and reduction in operating costs. The key is to learn from the best practices adopted by the Service sector and use the technology across functions like Procurement, Logistics, Planning, Finance, Production etc. for a range of processes such as Bill of Materials (BOM) management, material planning and purchase order management, invoicing, accounts receivable, order fulfilment, logistics, reporting, compliance, etc.

When manufacturing organizations consider RPA they invariably have three questions that need to be answered:

• Which are the most error-prone and time-intensive process to which RPA can be applied?
• Which of these will yield the highest ROI in the shortest possible time?
• Which processes should we make agile and responsive using RPA?

All three questions are important and must be answered. Depending on the industry, the business imperatives and the maturity of the enterprise, the answers vary. But there invariably are a handful of operations and processes that should be the first targets of RPA.

Our experience in RPA implementations in manufacturing has led us to create a short list of four areas where manufacturing organizations must apply RPA to improve efficiency and agility:

Handling demand fluctuation, scaling support functions: Manufacturing organizations have demonstrated tremendous efficiency improvements using tools for operational excellence. Their journey of improvement continues and is a constant source of inspiration to other industries. But the support functions in manufacturing have not seen the same level of concurrent efficiency improvement as operations. The opportunity for manufacturing companies is in business processes and support functions like finance, procurement, warehousing and logistics. These functions require multiple documents, data entry and routine report preparation. Processes such as purchase orders, GRN, delivery orders, invoices and shipment documents can be automated using RPA to save process time and release employees from tedious, repetitive and error-prone work. Instead, employees can be used for problem solving and driving continuous improvement projects.

Typically, manufacturing companies place considerable emphasis on skill development and manpower planning for shop floor associates (direct manpower). This is not always true for manpower employed in support functions. The result is that support functions become bottlenecks when business volumes increase. RPA is the solution. It allows organizations to manage fluctuating workloads better—without having to hire or retrench at short notices.

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction: Over the last few decades the Manufacturing industry has noted the importance of customer satisfaction (C-SAT) and has made considerable investments in improving C-SAT metrics. The goal has been to address factors that impact C-SAT such as quality, cost, delivery and responsiveness. However, in this digital era, customers expect feedback and resolution of their queries at a much faster pace. Therefore speed of responsiveness has become critical to maintaining competitiveness and retaining customers. To keep pace, smart manufacturers have been implementing RPA to reduce response time for customer queries and complaints. They use RPA to source data from multiple IT applications in a short interval (that could take hours in the earlier scenario) and ensure faster complaint resolution and response to queries. RPA can also, similarly, respond to vendor queries related to GRN status, payments, etc. without the need for any manual intervention.Ěý

Reporting & Performance Monitoring: Multiple reports are prepared by most departments to monitor shop floor KPIs and track production. While some of these reports are easy to prepare (from complexity and time perspective), many are complex and require data from multiple departments, like an integrated daily production report. Due to data being in different formats across departments and the lack of integration, these reports are time consuming and prone to error. RPA automates these reports and delivers timely and accurate reports in a cost-effective manner.

The concept of using RPA for reports can be extended to performance reviews, a trend that is catching on. Bots review performance metrics and when any data point is out of range, it is flagged as an exception with the respective manager. For example, a bot calculates the productivity data for each of the manufacturing lines and if all the lines have achieved the productivity as per defined norms, no exception report is sent to the production head. Though this use case is still at a conceptual stage, I believe this type of out-of-the-box thinking will result in harnessing the true potential of RPA in the Manufacturing sector.

Managing Complex Planning & Scheduling Process: Over the last few years, some manufacturers have invested in software for the purpose. However, the most widely prevalent practice to manage advanced planning and scheduling is to use excel sheets. Planning is an area ripe for RPA. Multiple data points like demand, capacity, material availability, FG stock levels, maintenance plan, backlog and priority orders, shipment plan, etc. need to be collated to arrive at a manufacturing plan. Using bots it is possible to mine the data from multiple sources and update standard templates. Based on defined intervals, bots can update actual performance against plan, changes in demand, actual sales data etc., based on which planners can optimise their manufacturing plan to maximize plant efficiency.

RPA presents opportunities to improve multiple manufacturing processes and functions to enhance efficiency, flexibility, responsiveness, manage workload variations and reduce costs. Most RPA investments are paid back quickly, making them highly attractive. Findings by Leslie Willcocks, professor of technology, work, and globalization at the London School of Economics’ Department of Management, show that a return on investment could be between 30 and 200% in the first year.¹ The manufacturing industry, which has an extraordinary number of repetitive and labor-intensive processes, stands to make considerable gains from RPA implementations.

About the author:

Nitin Kalothia
Associate Partner

Nitin Kalothia is an Associate Partner in the Business Consulting Group of 91¶¶Ňő. In his current role, he works closely with the Manufacturing Execution Systems capability team.

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Most manufacturers would turn to their vendors to weigh the pros and cons of both in a bid to resolve the dilemma. Unfortunately, the vendor’s answer to, “Is MES or an IIoT platform the right solution for my Smart Factory?” depends on what the vendor’s sales portfolio contains. #Naturally.

Most manufacturers already know that MES and IIoT platforms are stepping stones to a Smart Factory. In reality, the journey of a Smart Factory begins with MES and doesn’t really end there! IIoT platforms collect and integrate data from a wide range of IT and OT technologies (sensors, controllers, gateways) which can then be monitored and visualized in real-time. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can be applied to the data to extract new insights. IIoT platforms also make remote monitoring and predictive maintenance possible. Most importantly, the platforms enable new business models based on usage, location, etc., bringing down costs. These capabilities can’t be catered to directly by MES platforms.

MES is powerful in distinctly different ways, which is why it has become the technology of choice that manufacturers depend on. MES reduces friction between departments, operations and systems in a factory; it improves asset management and integrates production lines into supply chains to drive manufacturing excellence. MES platforms have the capability to integrate with equipment for real-time monitoring and their primary purpose is Business Process Management (BPM) which is not a native function that can be performed by an IIoT platform.

Most manufacturers would want a combination of MES and IIoT platforms and features. To an extent, this is becoming possible. Today, IIoT and MES products have additional functionality that offer a flavor of both. MES platforms have an IIoT layer which allows for integration with the shop floor for real time monitoring. IIoT platforms have a BPM component for process mapping of the type used by MES solutions. But the mix of IIoT and MES functionalities that initially appears attractive, quickly begins to look confusing because there is no simplistic way to arrive at the right mix.

One practical and grounded way to make a decision is to consider key use case for guidance: Pick a platform with an IIoT lineage, with some relevant MES functionalities, where the primary use case is to improve asset management decision making and get real-time visibility into plant performance; pick a MES platform, where the goal is to manage end to end operations in the factory value chain.

We recommended a solution on MES when one of our customers wanted to achieve full backward and forward traceability along with real time shop floor monitoring. This is because it required the system to track all the elements of people, process and data right from raw material stores to finished goods warehouse. On the other hand, when there was a requirement of tracking the equipment performance and implement predictive maintenance in a fully automated machine shop, our recommendation was the IIoT platform.

In many scenarios, there is a need for both. And MES and IIoT platforms do, and can, co-exist when the right architecture and solution scope are defined.

The decision, of course, becomes easy when you keep in mind that Smart Factories do not have a fixed “end state.” Your Smart Factory ecosystem must be unique but ever evolving—and that is a sure-fire strategy to stay ahead.

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Isn’t a good ERP solution good enough for managing manufacturing operations? Not really! Most traditional ERP systems have remained focused on official functions like accounting, human resources, customer service, basic plant scheduling, and supply chain operations. The demands of the production function are more
specific and technical in nature. The requirement in this case is a solution that helps improve real-time
workflow visibility and process efficiency within the factory floor.Ěý

Manufacturing Execution System – Built for the Factory Floor

A manufacturing execution system (MES) is an information system that interconnects, monitors, and
controls disparate manufacturing systems, and data flows in the production environment. It works across multiple areas of manufacturing operations including resource scheduling, product tracking, quality control, production analysis, maintenance management, and order execution. The solution gathers real-time data from the entire production lifecycle. The insights gleaned from this data is used for streamlining factory operations.

The primary goal of an MES is to ensure effective execution of the manufacturing operations and improve production output. A layer in between the ERP and other process control systems, an MES system is an essential add-on and not another version of an existing system. It functions seamlessly with ERP, supply chain management, PLM, and other core enterprise systems. Truth be told that there are some areas where the
ERP and MES systems overlap. However, this issue can be addressed easily since the implementation is done only after defining the roles and goals beforehand.

What to Look for Before Choosing an MES Solution

When it comes to choosing an MES solution, a few factors need to be considered before proceeding –
cost, interoperability, ease of deployment, language support, scalability, customization, and support.
The search for a one-size-fits-all solution may not be fruitful, since the modules depend on the industry
and scope of operations. Nevertheless, recent advancements have helped technology providers roll out
plug-and-play solutions that require minimal customization.Ěý

A good integrated manufacturing execution system provider should offer everything from concept to delivery. The ideal service suite consists of MES consulting, solution design & implementation, upgrade & roll out, integration, and maintenance.

The Benefits of Deploying an MES

Enterprises that deploy an MES solution can expect a clutch of benefits including cost optimization, increased throughput, improved operational control, reduced wastage, enhanced quality, and streamlined factory operations. A traditional ERP system might have some functionalities of an MES, but the extension can turn out to be more expensive in the long haul. That is because of the complexity of customization and the lack of flexibility. When it comes to niche requirements, like electronic batch records, weigh & dispense, and equipment management, an MES is head and shoulders above many other systems.

91¶¶Ňő’s MES-MOM Experience

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Enabling Seamless Communication between Machines and Humans

Thanks to technologies like IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud – each component of the factory is getting smarter by the day and generating intelligence at every step. People, raw material, equipment, logistics and customers are all sources of data in the new digital paradigm. There is a need to convert this data into a language that we, humans, understand. FCCC tackles this challenge by converting data into formats that are intelligible. Further, it presents data interpretations to us through dashboards that not only allow us to understand the data but also take adequate actions where necessary.

Here are a few benefits of FCCC:

• Real-time view into operational performance
• Accurate data and analysis that eliminates erroneous decisions
• Optimized resource utilization
• In-time interventions to ensure smooth functioning of operations

The Essential Components of an Effective FCCC Platform

It’s all about applying business intelligence to manufacturing data. A great FCCC platform brings innovation, customer centricity, operational excellence and agility to the table. It weaves together a wide range of technologies such that users get a holistic view of all factory operations. Here are the key components of a FCCC platform that an organization needs to look into before adopting it:

• Data:ĚýThe platform must act as a bridge between users and data sources without the compulsion to design complex data models or ETL. Users should be able to seamlessly connect to proprietary data sources, cloud apps, web services and relational databases with the ability to extract data from disparate sources in a unified manner.

• Dashboards:ĚýThe solution should pave the path for creation of customized dashboards with business intelligence and self-service capabilities. Users must be able to enjoy the flexibility of choosing from a wide range of widgets, charts and controls that make interactive visualization possible.

• Analysis: The mark of a good FCCC is its intuitiveness. It must be equipped with an array of user-friendly tools for data visualization as well as discovery. It is imperative that the platform enables users to build their own KPIs and metrics for precise analysis and tracking. Ability to create linked views as well as dashboards for dynamic drilldowns and analysis is also essential. Organizations must veer towards the ones that leverage open architecture as it makes customization, integration and functionality extension feasible.

• Actions:ĚýThe platform must empower the users to take right actions by integrating external systems and facilitating live alerts. It must possess a highly responsive UI that makes usage across mobile devices highly effective. The solution should be fully customizable and extensible to meet any organization- or task-specific demands.

The complex mesh of interconnected system is something that every factory has to contend with today. FCCC annihilates the threat of losing control over this network.

The 91¶¶Ňő Advantage

We understand the criticality of information in modern-day factories that function round the clock, throughout the year. Among the advantages of partnering with us is our ability to group together various technologies and establish a connect between them. This is made possible by our experts who stem from various tech domains. We are a part of ITC Ltd. – a leading diversified conglomerate and one of India’s most respected company, and that makes us unique with our practitioner’s understanding of factories. It is for reasons such as these that organizations around the globe leverage our expertise and situational understanding when it comes to Factory Command and Control Centers.

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