Manufacturing Information Systems

Traceability

One of the most important new manufacturing requirements is traceability. Today’s information systems offer great opportunities to trace your product’s origin and route through manufacturing better than ever before. While this sort of information stream has always been possible, for many industries with tight margins and fierce competition it has not been economically viable.

We can help you collect and organize your manufacturing quality data in a straightforward fashion. We can then set up reporting systems to allow your customer service functions to quickly trace and resolve problems, before they reach disastrous proportions.

Accurate, Timely Data Collection

Much of the data being collected in today’s manufacturing is simply not accurate, nor is it updated in a timely fashion. Systems that are supposed to be real time often lag behind the actual processes by many minutes or hours. If you manage your operations by watching for signs of trouble and reacting accordingly, inaccuracies and delays in your information updates can make the difference between a minor bump and a major spill.

We have a broad base of experience in collecting accurate data that reflects accurately what is happening on the plant floor. We know how to keep the data up to date, without introducing extra manufacturing time in the process.

Information System Driven Process Parameters

Today, manufacturers are requiring more and more systems that produce multiple product variations. Whether it’s a food batching system that produces 31 flavors, or a driveline assembly system producing a range of automobile models, systems must be able to recognize which product is being made, and adjust settings accordingly.

In most cases, multiple product parameters originate at the product design level, in an effort to meet the needs of marketing a single product type to dozens of narrow niche markets, each with its own special requirements, in a cost effective way. Often, these parameters travel through QA, manufacturing engineering, production control, and other functions, eventually ending up in the hands of computer and control systems programmers, who modify the code and go through testing cycles to verify that the new products will be made to specification.

We can provide you with systems that let you manage product feature parameters at a single point of entry, and that can update your plant floor controls with the new product information in the blink of an eye. We can even give you proposed stage and approved stage iterations, with user authentication, change management control, and historical retrieval.

Tightly Integrated Interactive Process Control

Today’s control systems are ever more sophisticated. However, there are times when a process requires machine vision or thermographic analysis, with an expert system outside the machine control to crunch the numbers.

We have special expertise in developing applications that can operate such high tech processes, tightly integrating them with the machine control to achieve maximum throughput with minimum error.