Continuous improvement in manufacturing – particularly in the food & beverage industry – is critical to increase productivity, reduce unplanned downtime and costs, meet industry compliance mandates, and adhere to food safety and quality standards.
Plant personnel often use manual data collection to capture losses and generate efficiency metrics. However, this information is often grossly inaccurate. For example, at a national bottling company, reports stated there were five stops during the week on a line, when there were actually more than 75 stops a day, or about 375 stops a week. Additionally, the lack of real-time data meant plant personnel received information the next day for how well they performed the previous day, further impeding progress.
Because an average production line stops an astounding – and costly - 20,000 times per year, there is a lot of room for improvement. Today we're speaking with, John Oskin from SmartSights, who will discuss advanced data collection software that can seamlessly integrate into plant floor systems and improve overall equipment effectiveness, manufacturing efficiency, and the mean time between failure. This software, which allows end users to look at each machine as well as the entire line, takes data collection to the next level and provides real-time visibility with a broad set of analytics to drive improvements, reduce costs and avoid capital expenditures.
