What is Intelligent Manufacturing?
Advantage Industrial Automation offers a portfolio of solutions that close the loop between the plant floor and your business, ERP or Supply Chain systems. Intelligent Manufacturing includes a wide range of solutions and terms:
Manufacturing Visibility
Manufacturing Visibility is the ability to see information from disparate plant floor sources in a context that becomes knowledge – and using this knowledge to make better decisions. Manufacturing visibility helps everyone see what works and what does not, and why some things work better than others. The end result is improved performance across the board. Intelligent Manufacturing gives you better visibility into your manufacturing operations so everyone is on the same and manufacturing goals are aligned with company goals.
MES
Manufacturing (Optimization &) Execution Systems…Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions…the acronym is evolving. MES describes the optimization of production activities from order launch to finished goods. Using current and accurate data, MES initiates, guides, responds to, and reports on plant activities as they occur. The result drives effective plant operations and processes. “MES” falls under the umbrella of Intelligent Manufacturing Solutions from Advantage, helping to improve operational excellence and improve manufacturing visibility.
The Transparent Factory
Transparent Factory is a concept based on Internet technologies enabling seamless communication between plant floor and business systems. By exposing information at the source, proprietary barriers are eliminated, allowing business systems to access production data from anywhere on the plant floor – and in the world. With open communications from plant floor devices to your ERP system, Manufacturing Visibility is achieved and better decisions are made as data flows quickly and accurately throughout your enterprise.
Plant Intelligence
Plant Intelligence tools enable you to make business sense out of raw manufacturing data. Imagine a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators giving all “one version of the truth”, top-to-bottom, throughout the enterprise. Enterprise Analysis and Reporting features of Plant Intelligence tools allow you to improve Overall Equipment Efficiency and deliver the right information to the right user, supervisor, manager or whoever needs it whenever they need it. With Intelligent Manufacturing, you create a customized version of Plant Intelligence.
Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing
Six Sigma involves a set of best practices and methodologies used to reduce defects and improve quality of processes, procedures, and products. Lean Manufacturing systematically eliminates waste through continuous improvement by delivering product based on customer demand. Without data, Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing cannot “work”. Intelligent Manufacturing solutions provide the right data at the right time to feed these initiatives.
Control, Automation, Networking, Computing
Intelligent Manufacturing is not software and hardware programmed in air-conditioned offices. Intelligent Manufacturing solutions are deployed starting on the production floor. Machine and process automation & controls, operator interface, machine safety, networking and industrial computing are foundations of the Intelligent Manufacturing solution.
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