Digital Manufacturing

How a manufacturing enterprise leverages technology to manage and control all the processes and activities occurring at the factory level and across the supply chain is critical to reaping the benefits offered by Industry 4.0. With the cost of raw materials on the rise, an increasingly unpredictable and complex global marketplace and growing regulatory compliance concerns, manufacturers that want to succeed need to cut waste, ensure product traceability and optimize processes, all while still increasing throughput. This can only be achieved with a well-defined methodology for managing operations resources and data across their production lifecycle. Continuing along our Digital Thread for Industry 4.0, Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) and Factory Automation & Control take us out of the virtual world of design and into the physical world of production, build, assembly and quality assurance. Our product has been designed and validated by engineering, and manufacturing planning has defined the optimal way for it to be manufactured in the factory. Now, it is time to execute production in order to deliver a quality product to our end consumer.

What is Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM)?

The job of manufacturing operations is to oversee the process of transforming raw materials and resources into finished products. The aim of the process must be to get a quality product to market as quickly as possible and in the most cost-effective way for the business. Manufacturing Operations Management, or MOM, is a collective set of methodologies and systems for managing the end-to-end manufacturing process with a view to optimizing efficiency. By implementing solutions which synchronize production planning, production execution, quality control and data collection in an integrated and standardized way, you can drive speed and quality across all your processes, from start to finish.

1. Production Planning & Scheduling

The first step to optimized MOM is flexible operations. Flexible operations rely on a flexible production plan and schedule. You must be able to react to unexpected changes intelligently and adjust your production plan quickly in order to minimize lead times, satisfy your customers and optimize throughput. With the right Production Planning & Scheduling tools in place, manufacturers can gain the visibility and control they need to first understand what is happening, and then adjust their operations accordingly.

2. Manufacturing Execution

How can you efficiently monitor, optimize and synchronize all the moving parts and activities going on in the production plant? Simple: with the right Manufacturing Execution System (MES) in place. An MES is a digitalized control system for managing and monitoring work-in-progress (WIP) on the factory floor, and even across globally distributed sites. An MES keeps track of all manufacturing information in real time, receiving up-to-the-minute data from robots, machine monitors and operators, and documenting the entire process from beginning to end.

3. Manufacturing Quality Control

As your product is being produced in the factory, you need to ensure that it is meeting all expected specifications, both in terms of the product and the manufacturing process. Quality compliance, particularly in highly-regulated industries, is not an option. Excessive waste, rework, uncaptured defects and quality inspections are all very costly and have a direct impact on your bottom line. Well-designed quality control systems enable the effective management of the entire manufacturing process from lab to label, automating data collection, identifying issues in real time and predicting problems before they occur. Our Manufacturing Quality & Statistical Process Control (SPC) solutions adhere to all industry-specific and international compliance standards.

4. Production Monitoring & Analytics

In order to optimize operations, you need to have the right information available at the right time to help you understand how well your machines and factory are performing. By connecting all your machines and production systems within an integrated MOM environment and implementing solutions that track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as Machine Availability, Machine Utilization and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), you will enable your plant managers to identify bottlenecks, make smarter decisions and react quickly to unexpected issues on the factory floor.

What is Factory Automation & Control?

In today’s competitive world, it is crucial for manufacturers to be dynamic, to innovate and to continuously monitor their production processes. Factory Automation & Control (A&C) solutions cover the automation of an entire manufacturing facility via the design and construction of a fully integrated and intelligent control system, requiring sensors, instruments, computers and the application of data processing. Industrial automation deals primarily with the automation of manufacturing, quality control and material handling processes. Industrial automation solutions aim to reduce the reliance of companies on unreliable and error-prone manual processes on the production floor and replace them with command-response activities executed by mechanized equipment and logical programming commands.

Engineering Industries eXcellence's leading Automation & Control Competence Center boasts a group of over 350 technology experts in locations across Italy, North America and South America, all specialized in the design, implementation, launch and support of A&C systems for both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing contexts. Our proven portfolio of solutions enables them to deliver integrated, comprehensive and specialized connectivity solutions, networks and digital ecosystems to customers worldwide. Our A&C offering supports the automation of tasks belonging to all level systems aligned to the international standards for the integration of enterprise IT and control systems (ANSI/ISA-95 and IEC/ISO 62264):

Level 1: Automation layer, PLCs, process operations, sequencing, robotics;
Level 2: Monitoring and controlling physical processes;
Level 3: Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM).

Factory Automation & Control is critical to manufacturing enterprises that aim to reduce production costs, increase throughput and maintain profitable and efficient operations. In order to achieve the continuous connectivity that Industry 4.0 demands, companies must leverage communication and control technologies to connect and synchronize all the moving parts within a factory – the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), all software and all hardware – in a way that enhances and improves the manufacturing process as a whole.