10 Opportunities for Industry 4.0 PPC
The topic of Industry 4.0 is probably the most recurring theme in manufacturing company today. The concept, which is so significant that it is even classified as a new industrial revolution, presupposes a smart factory where machines and systems are fully connected. In this article, we will discuss how PPC Product-Product-Care) can adapt and evolve to exploit the opportunities generated by the evolution of manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0.
1. AUTONOMOUS PROGRAMMING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Ideally, all programming rules and criteria are predefined so that programming can be executed completely autonomously. The programmer's intervention should be minimal, preferably requiring justification and comparison with the previous automatic scenario for approval. If there are exceptional criteria that must be considered, these should be specified through system parameters, avoiding manual interference. If the programming system rules do not consider all the main variables, it indicates that these rules need improvement or the system needs to be reviewed. In autonomous programming, at short intervals, the system updates itself with new orders and data and reprograms the factory, keeping the team informed through intelligent notifications when everything is within expected limits or sending alerts to the programmer. In this way, it is possible to provide the equivalent of a 24-hour production planning and control (PPC) system and ensure that the programming is always balanced and up-to-date for the factory.
2. TOTAL CONTROL OVER RESOURCES In Industry 4.0 Production Planning and Control (PPC), it is not only the capacity of specific machines that is controlled and managed. On the contrary, all finite resources must be known and managed, including Operators and Tools. The labor required to perform each operation must consider the variations of each type of product and machine; operators need to be defined according to their multi-functionality across different sectors; and detailed labor availability must be considered, in some cases even mes with the HR system and time clock. In this way, PPC can guide the factory in allocating the necessary labor according to the schedule, considering all the real characteristics and limitations of the process.
3. PAPERLESS FACTORY
In the Industry 4.0 factory, there is no longer room for paper. Scheduling must be sent to the factory digitally. Printing resource allocation or sequencing reports and handing paperwork to production supervisors is no longer acceptable. Instead, scheduling should be automatically released on screens similar to those in an airport or, when possible, sent to each machine's own terminal, centralizing the scheduling and data entry interface in the mesenvironment. This way, changes can be made much more quickly, since it is not necessary to collect old versions and reprint the schedule whenever there is a change.
4. MOVEMENT GUIDED BY PROGRAMMING In the PPC , it's not just the sequencing of machines that's done; movement is considered and even mes by the production scheduling system. Scheduling criteria should already consider the physical location of resources and allocate machines in a way that minimizes cross-flow or unnecessary movements between distant, upstream and downstream resources. Furthermore, the available schedule can guide movement, indicating the subsequent resource to which the material should be sent after production. In some cases, the AGV movement route itself can be defined based on the detailed schedule.
5. Connected Maintenance
The PPC Production Planning and Control) of the future does not work in isolation. Interfaces with the main areas of the company are fundamental to achieving better performance. In this sense, an agile flow of information between PPC and Maintenance is essential. Ideally, when an operator registers a maintenance request for a specific piece of equipment, PPC should immediately receive this signal and, depending on the type of problem (based on the repair time history), redistribute orders and rebalance the schedule using alternative resources to try to minimize the impact.
6. MACHINE LEARNING TO IDENTIFY PATTERNS In the context of the connected factory, preference rule definitions are no longer arbitrarily determined or defined solely by people's experience, but rather must be calculated based on Machine Learning algorithms so that the system learns to identify patterns for productivity gains as it is used more and more. For example, from the first orders produced of a new product, the system can identify that the production efficiency on some machines is much better than on others, and prioritize the allocation of subsequent orders to the resources that have performed best in the recent past. Thus, the schedule will be sent considering the machines with the best performance for certain products (or molds, for example), without depending on people's experience and a priority database that can quickly become obsolete.
7. ADHERENCE INDICATORS
The main indicator of the factory of the future is adherence to scheduling. Instead of controlling production by units produced, which generates distortions due to mix variations or undesirable prioritization behaviors, the main function of the factory becomes executing the entire schedule with the least possible variation, considering that the Production Planning and PPC has already taken into account all the main variables and operational constraints to guarantee a feasible schedule that is adequate to the production strategies.
8. AGILE RESCHEDULING It's not just Production Scheduling that needs to be agile, but Rescheduling as well. In PPC , the planning system must be connected, reading data from machine sensors, so that any performance variation can be quickly updated and eventually recalculated. If there are problems with scrap, lack of operators, or unexpected unavailability of raw materials, PPC can quickly update digitally and reschedule the factory rapidly, trying to generate the least impact.
9. REAL-TIME DELIVERY PROMISES MES mes process is also done in a way that is connected to the factory. Based on a real-time query of the detailed production schedule, delivery times for new orders are made taking into account the detailed product routings and the projected availability of inputs. Mes if it is a product launch that is not yet registered in the ERP, the simulation can be performed by analogy with similar products or integration with the routing and structure of the PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) system.
10. ADVANCED SCENARIO PLANNING It's not just production scheduling processes that can be enhanced and benefited by the advent of Industry 4.0. Medium- to long-term planning can and should also be included in this approach. In this context, decision-making becomes entirely based on advanced scenarios, generating condensed and managerial information from meticulously calculated data. S&OP processes begin to consider the detailed capacity and real availability of all factory resources. It is no longer necessary to limit oneself to performing only one plan per month; at any time the system can connect to the actual order input and the updated factory situation to recalculate scenarios and redirect course throughout the month. All decisions are quantified and presented with financial integration for executive analysis of the scenarios.
These opportunities are part of the trends in PPC , but at the mes time, many of them are already realities for NEO's clients. If you would like to explore these points further in your industry, contact us and take the next step in this industrial revolution!
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