Smart Manufacturing

CASE STUDY 6Using Factory-Floor Touch Screens to Improve Operations

Miles Schofield and Aaron Pompey

Introduction

Standardizing reporting and task tracking is crucial to Smart Manufacturing practices, although optimizing reporting is often a contentious discussion. If a worker is executing a manual reporting protocol (e.g. taking or sending notes), then they are not directly contributing to a production action. Conversely, if a worker is executing no reporting, manual or otherwise, then the end product becomes the single (lagging) metric, yielding little data to optimize or troubleshoot technical and efficiency issues. Ideally, notes and reporting would be automated through a number of intelligent monitoring systems; however, advances in reporting automation have not yet reached a level of practicality, which locates us in our current state: an age where boxes must be checked, and notes must be “handwritten.”

Depending on the environment and the type of manufacturing line, and in the absence of fully automated systems, several input options are available for streamlining reporting protocols – from the simple post-shift action of transcribing paper notes (which have been taken during a shift) into a laptop, to more sophisticated solutions (like real-time controllers positioned at each station) for collecting dynamic real-time data. Many technical options exist in between, like a standard computer, acting as a controller, linked to a tracking database, or the use of mobile communication ...