Friday, December 11, 2015

You Say You Want A Revolution?

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member and MESA-Recognized Practitioner

Smart Manufacturing is heralded to be the next industrial revolution; will small manufacturers benefit?

Monday, November 16, 2015

The PLC is Dead; Long Live the PAC

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member and MESA-Recognized Practitioner

Will your executive board be surprised at the cost of replacing your automation controllers?

Friday, August 28, 2015

Are Your Manufacturing Operations Obsolete?

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member and MESA-Recognized Practitioner

How can you determine if your manufacturing operations are no longer competetive? There are telltale signs if you know how to look for them.  The following excerpt from "Seven Warning signs that your Manufacturing Operations Are Becoming Obsolete" give one example.

Monday, August 24, 2015

10 Ways to Ensure You Don't Screw Up the OEE

By Kathy Barthelt, member of MESA International

I have to be honest with you... Most OEE projects fail before they’re implemented and it's up to YOU to make sure that doesn't happen! Not everyone has the same priorities and what’s important today may not be tomorrow. So how do you put together a project that will address the desires of all the stakeholders? What’s the best way to navigate the political landscape that’s been laid out in front of you?
Is it possible to NOT screw up the project? 

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Not All of Big-Data Is Hype -- Self-Service BI with Data Analytics Can Yield Quick Results for Manufacturing

Rapid Insights and Operational Intelligence for the shop-floor

By Gopal GopalKrishnan, P.E., Solution Architect, Partners and Strategic Alliances, OSIsoft, LLC. Member, MESA International Technical and Education Committee 

Not all big-data is hype. Self-service BI with its slice and dice user experience came along just as big-data was gaining mindshare.  And, when targeted to specific use cases, self-service BI with data analytics can yield rapid insights – big data or not.

This is Part 2 of a blog post series describing the use of self-service BI and data analytics from real-life scenarios in MOM (manufacturing operations management).  This use case comes from one of Georgia Pacific’s (GP) paper machine operation.  

To read Part 1 click here: http://blog.mesa.org/2015/02/what-if-expedia-showed-your.html#links.

If you are not familiar with how paper is made, please see this interactive video tour. The data and analysis described below is for the “Papermaking” step in the video tour.  Here, several chemicals are added to the feed stock to influence its properties such as whiteness, strength, and others.  

Friday, July 24, 2015

Antifragility and Plant Floor Systems

 By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

Few words strike fear in manufacturing operations executives as do “enterprise system software upgrade”.  Once uttered, there is an almost instantaneous demand to IT for assurances that all existing processes will still function after the upgrade has been completed.  In many cases, the existing platform has been customized, tweaked, interfaced, and personalized beyond anyone’s ability to fully know.  Clearly, the current state of enterprise-level systems is “fragile”.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Is Your Businesses a Leader in MES/MOM? Now You Can Prove It.

By Marc Leroux, Chairman of MESA's Education Committee, International Board Member, and Americas Board Member

MESA has just launched a new, two part recognition program. The first part is geared towards individual practitioners, the second is for organizations. In a previous post I talked about the individual recognition program for practitioners, in this post I’ll talk about the  MESA Recognized Business program.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

3 Requirements Prove MES/MOM Professionals Are Ready For Any Project

By Marc Leroux, Chairman of MESA's Education Committee, International Board Member, and Americas Board Member

MESA has just launched a new, two part recognition program. The first part is geared towards individual practitioners, the second is for organizations. In this post I’ll talk about the MESA Recognized Practitioner program.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Are Your MES/MOM Skills Recognized?

 By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

Plant floor systems used to be simpler things: relay-driven machine logic, counters and gauges that human operators could read and record values on their clipboards, control panels with numerous indicator lights showing what was happening at any given time.  But automation has evolved from those roots: industrial controllers have replaced relays, graphical HMIs with touch screens have replaced the lighted panels, and networks now exchange information between production equipment and enterprise systems – eliminating the need for a human with a clipboard, but also enabling new capabilities throughout the entire value chain.  This evolution has led to the development of a new body of knowledge, often referred to as Manufacturing Operations Management, or MOM. Many of today’s industry initiatives – such as “smart manufacturing”, “digital thread”, “real-time enterprise”, “connected enterprise”, and “Industrie 4.0” – are deeply rooted in MOM.

Friday, May 15, 2015

U.K. Manufacturing: From Underdog to Top Dog

By Martyn Gill, International Board Member of MESA International 


The history of U.K. manufacturing includes key events that led to struggles resulting in 
the sector shrinking by two-thirds in 30 years. There are also undeniable turning points that fuelled the country’s determination to reinstate manufacturing as a leading source of revenue and value. Today, the sector is stronger than previous decades—it grew by 2.5 percent or more in 2014—but it lacks recognition of its importance in the economy and society, and needs investment to ensure continued success.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Strategy, Culture, and Breakfast

 By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

In spite of all the Internet attributions of this quote to management guru Peter Drucker, there is some question as to whether he actually said it.  Although the phrase doesn't seem to appear in Drucker’s books, one source traces it to Mark Fields of Ford Motor Company where it’s said the quote hangs in the company war room.  Regardless of whether Drucker actually uttered these words, understanding the context of the idea is critical because it can be easily misinterpreted.

Monday, April 20, 2015

In Memory of Ziggy: A Cautionary Tale for Smart Manufacturing


By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

The late 90’s were heady times in the battery industry.  The Sony Walkman cassette players that had been all the rage were giving way to CD and other digital technologies. Digital cameras were supplanting 35mm as the consumer choice for photography. New and innovative battery-driven products were appearing daily.  Energizer and Duracell were in a continuous battle for who could produce the longest-lasting portable power solutions to keep these devices going.  The long-term prospects for the battery industry were for constant growth – and constant change.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

5 Ways Pharma and Medical Device Manufacturers Can Use Technology to Promote Quality and Compliance

By Eric Weisbrod, International Board Member of MESA International 

InfinityQS shares five tips on how the pharmaceutical and medical device industry can use enterprise quality systems, Manufacturing Intelligence platforms and automated device integration technologies to streamline compliance procedures, reduce recalls, speed time-to-market and increase profitability. 

Monday, April 6, 2015

How to Stop Rising Emergency Preventive Maintenance Costs




By Ananth Seshan, Chairman, MESA Asset Performance Management (APM) Working Group and MESA International Board Member at Large
 
One of the main objectives of Asset Performance Management is to maximize the net return on production assets. This requires maximizing availability by maintaining the assets in good health. This in turn is achieved by adopting a sound policy of maintenance interventions.  Too much intervention is costly.  Too little – again costly!  In other words, we need to arrive at an optimal balance of proactive and reactive interventions.

Proactive maintenance includes any activity performed for maintaining an asset before it fails. Reactive maintenance is any maintenance activity performed after a failure. Proactive maintenance comprises the following activities:  Emergency Preventive Maintenance (EPM), Preventive Maintenance (PM)and, Predictive Maintenance (PdM).


Reactive maintenance comprises two types:  Emergency Corrective Maintenance (ECM) and Non-Emergency Corrective Maintenance (NCM).  Achieving optimal balance would mean increasing the cost of Proactive Maintenance appropriately in order to reduce the cost of Reactive Maintenance substantially.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Who Drives Change?

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

 Lately I've been thinking about change initiatives within an organization, particularly about who owns these initiatives and harnesses them to achieve true value. Whether it’s Lean, Theory of Constraints, Product Lifecycle Management, Business Process Management, Manufacturing Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, Resource Consumption Accounting, or even Project Management, someone must champion the initiative from conception to integration. There is, of course, a whole management consulting industry around organizational change, and I think that’s a valid approach for assisting change. However, consultants do not have ownership of the initiative; they can sell and support, but only the owner can derive business value.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Join the development of the Smart Manufacturing Strategy?

By Conrad Leiva, MESA International Board Member


The governments of China, India and the United States have all identified “Smart Manufacturing” as a strategic lever for long-term economic growth.  Similarly, the government of Germany has Industrie 4.0.  All these countries are looking to define how to leverage the advances in modern Information Technologies to make manufacturing a cog in their economic engines.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

MESA International Announces Results of 2015-2016 Board Elections


MESA's boards are more active than ever and they've greatly increased in size and representation this term to continue work on MESA's expanded initiatives. MESA's Leadership Development Committee received interest from an exceptionally high number of board candidates and the leadership teams are eager to engage with the new boards to bring continued benefit to MESA's members, and the community at large.

Friday, March 20, 2015

The Real Skills Gap

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

There’s been a great deal of discussion in industry press about a growing skills gap – typically focused on technical skills but occasionally on leadership skills as well. The March 16th issue of Crain’s Cleveland Business had a front page article on manufacturing leaders nearing retirement; “Who”, they ask, “will run the manufacturing industry when the generation in charge eventually walks away?” The US Chamber of Commerce Foundation published a 2014 white paper entitled “Managing the Talent Pipeline: A New Approach to Closing the Skills Gap” which paints a dire picture of talent systems that are not keeping pace with economic requirements, and manufacturers who struggle to find the skills they need in the job market as talent nears retirement.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Three reasons “Tribal Knowledge” is not effective in decision-making

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa


 
A comment on one of my on-line posts was that the post focused too much on data, did not question if the correct measures are used and glossed over the fact that there is a load of information at the shop floor known as “Tribal Knowledge” that is important. This statement is undoubtedly true and I have had first-hand experience regarding the value of “tribal knowledge”. In another post a person was offended as an operator that I stated that an HMI can lead to incorrect actions or decisions by operators, as it implies that as an operator he doesn’t know his plant. This person undoubtedly knows his plant and would make good decisions. The quality of the “good” decisions however will depend greatly on the “bias” introduced by “tribal knowledge” and the scientific basis of the related “tribal knowledge”.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 6 – The Great Divide

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member


When management wants to make something happen, they change the structure of the organization. Whether its ad-hoc project teams to deliver a product or service, or departments developed around specific disciplines such as IT, engineering, procurement, or accounting, organizational structure provides the framework for business execution. It can also be a significant hurdle to successful change as people become entrenched within the practices of an established structure. How does this impact manufacturing and engineering technologies? This chapter examines how two organizations - Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI) – deal with the challenges of organizational boundaries.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Manufacturing and IT: An Alliance for Better Business Outcomes

With the manufacturing and IT silos that exist in some companies, it’s difficult for people to consider the bigger picture. MESA can help the two sides collaborate toward shared business objectives.

By Ann Krauss, MESA International Marketing Committee member

As we celebrate the month of romance and togetherness, it’s an ideal time to consider the many facets of relationships inherent in a manufacturing company. In particular, manufacturing and IT professionals haven’t always been on the same page when it comes to the best technologies to implement to reach business goals. In some companies, there are manufacturing and IT silos, and everyone is simply too busy or too narrowly focused to even take a moment to come up for air and consider the bigger picture.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

What if Expedia showed your manufacturing operations data?

By Gopal Krishnan, P.E., Solution Architect, Partners and Strategic Alliances, OSIsoft, LLC. Member, MESA International Technical and Education Committee 

Rapid Insights and Operational Intelligence for the shop-floor

It is no surprise that the big-data hype is falling into the trough of disillusionment (Lisa Kart, Gartner, January 2015, Big data industry insights) and organizations are struggling to get value from their big data investments. As if to save the day, a McKinsey January 2015 article Getting big impact from big data makes a number of recommendations;

Thursday, February 5, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 5 – Studies in Change

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

“Is it us, or is it the technology?” Whenever MES/MOM technology is discussed, the importance of change management is emphasized. Chapter 4 of this series examined the architectural aspects of change – the importance of having a platform that flourishes with change. This chapter delves into the “soft skills”, perhaps the most difficult part of successful integration of technology into operations. Once again, we examine change at two plants: Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI).

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Are you confused by The MES/MOM Word Game?

By Mike K Williams, MESA Americas Board Member, Dow Chemical retired

Recently a group of executive level leaders in the chemical, oil and gas sector meet to discuss the needs and value of manufacturing IT investments.  The group was rather vocal in its responses.  One common theme being voiced by all was, “IT needs to be more responsive to Operation’s needs”.  What did they mean by this statement?

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Chapter 4 - Butler Bob brings a SONA to work

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Sidekick Sam is having a break from fighting the production gremlins and the machine-blocking monsters. He sits back in his chair and almost falls over backward as he notices Butler Bob standing right in front of his table.

Bob with his quiet and unobtrusive ways often surprise people by seemingly appearing out of thin air right in front of them. This serves him well in his function to ensure that nothing and nobody ruins the smooth running of the administration and financial offices. “Goodness Bob,” he exclaims, “how many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on me! You’ll give me a heart-attach yet. I bet you get a great kick out of seeing people falling out of their chairs. What are you doing here anyway; you never come into the plant.”

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Grantek to host the MESA Global Education Program Training Event in Chicago

By Grantek, MESA Gold Keystone Sponsor

Are you charged with planning or designing manufacturing information systems? Do you understand how to develop and implement a program to transform your manufacturing information systems to produce real benefits for your company? If you could use some pointers, or just want to understand the big picture, here is your chance.

Monday, January 26, 2015

How to Monetize Innovation in an Expedient Manner

By Mike K Williams, MESA Americas Board Member, Dow Chemical retired

Many companies today are challenged with improving the return on their existing capital investments.  Providing more sellable output from manufacturing facilities is the desire of all corporate executives.  One way to improve sales is to expedite the monetization of innovation through increasing the velocity of new products introduced into our factories.  One of the significant challenges to accomplishing this task is what is called “product fit”.   This involves matching the machine capability with the new product manufacturing requirements to successfully convert raw materials into finished goods in a profitable manner.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Chapter 3 - Sidekick Sam serves SOA

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Sidekick Sam is fighting an extruder gone wild. Every time he thinks he has it under control, the extruder retaliates with a new surprise. Sam misses Captain Packer. They work so well together as a team, but sometimes a sidekick has to handle things himself, especially when the superhero has more important things to do. Finally, with a back sore from bending over and hands all sweaty from his protective gloves, Sam manages to get the extruder to behave. On his way to the change-room he is intercepted by one of the operators. “Here you are! I have been looking for you all over. Capt…I mean, Mr Packer wants you to come to his office immediately sir.” He says with a goofy expression, “It sounded quite urgent.”

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 4 – A Grief Observed

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

This is the fourth in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. Chapter 1 demonstrated the differences in the impact technology has on two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). Chapter 2 described the strategic basis which eventually led to how workers at both companies experience technology. Chapter 3 illustrated the underlying strategies each organization adopted toward plant floor system implementation. This chapter – contemporary to chapter 1 - compares the processes both organizations utilize to implement similar changes.

Monday, January 19, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 3 – Mere Maturity

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member  

This is the third in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. Chapter 1 demonstrated the differences in the impact technology has on two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). Chapter 2 described the strategic basis which eventually led to how workers at both companies experience technology. This chapter opens with characters we’ve met before: Earl and Ellen at DBM, Joe and Steve at PCI.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Chapter 2 - Sidekick Sam sings Karaoke

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Captain Packer and sidekick Sam once again explore ways to reduce paper-work and increase production efficiency.

Captain Packer and Sidekick Sam are feeling good about themselves. They have just saved one of their packaging machines from becoming the victim of the dreaded Block-and-Break monster. This was their final heroic act of the day, and they are sitting in Peter Packer’s office, reviewing the past week.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Captain Packer and the paper imposition

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa

Captain Packer and his trusty sidekick Sam explores ways to reduce the mountains of paper flowing over his desk on a daily basis, and how they can do this whilst increasing production efficiency.

Peter Packer is a (self-proclaimed) captain of industry. His trusty operations manager Sam has worked with him for the last ten years. Within his company BestPack Industry , the two are known as Captain Packer and Sidekick Sam. Together they rule the factory with an iron fist. He is a hero to his employees and always appears when a machine turns villainous or raises a ruckus. A frequent comment in the canteen is “Captain Packer sees all” (but only if the Captain or Sam is not around).

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Top 50 Downloads of 2014: #18 Multiple Site MES Projects: Systems Implementation is Half the Battle

Managing Big Multi Site Manufacturing IT Projects for Success

By Conrad Leiva, International Board Member of MESA International and member of MESA’s Technical Committee



I have been looking back at some of my favorite MESA.org resources from the past and I continue to find much of the strategy, roadmap and implementation insights from the last five years holding up very well to the test of time. 

Friday, January 9, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories: Chapter 2 – The Problem of Pain

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

This is the second in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. Once again, the story focuses on two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). In this chapter we observe with how both organizations address decision-making related to plant floor information technology. This is a precursor to Chapter 1, occurring a few years earlier, and begins with both Brian, the COO of DBM, and Joe, the VP of Operations at PCI, considering options for performance management systems.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A Tale of Two Factories

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member 

How many applications do plant floor personnel need to learn to do their job? The title of my blog is Dickensian enough, so I won’t open with a cheesy “best of times, worst of times” parody. This is the first in a series discussing the impact of technology, production processes, and the intersection of where they meet – the production workers on the factory floor. The story begins with two plants – Deuxieme Botte Manufacturing (DBM) and Premiere Chaussure Industries (PCI). We are introduced to two workers: Don is a maintenance technician at DBM, and Brad has a similar position at PCI. Let’s take a look at a typical morning for each of them.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Manufacturing Metrics that Really Don’t Matter

By Conrad Leiva, International Board Member of MESA International and member of MESA’s Technical Committee 
 
Manufacturing is experiencing a renaissance these days and with any renaissance we have to be a little skeptical of potential overhype in some areas. Metrics is a topic within manufacturing that receives much attention and it is possible for an organization to get carried away with new metrics for the organization. We are providing some examples below of poor metrics for manufacturing plants to help you keep an eye out for these creeping up in your organization: