IN MY OPINION | | SEPTEMBER 20208CIOReviewLISTEN TO YOUR PROCESS TO WIN!By Paul C. Susalla, Corporate Manufacturing Technology Advancement Director, Parker Hannifin Corporation [NYSE: PH]You are a world-class manufacturer of your goods. Why then is your competition so close at your heels, or worse, beating you? What do they know that you don't?The key to success is gaining that last bit of efficiency, making the most of your equipment, tooling, labor, and maintenance activities. You do this by analyzing the essential data associated with everything you do in the manufacturing process. Note that this is different from collecting every known drop of data and creating a data lake. Instead, this is the process of Data-Driven Manufacturing (DDM). DDM has been around for quite some time, but many don't know what it is or how to use it. It is the discipline of collecting data, analyzing it to create valuable information leading to decisions based on facts to improve manufacturing processes. By "listening" to your processes and equipment, you will discover where you can improve your efficiency. Production Monitoring DDM is the acquisition and analysis of machine and unit-level production data. This is where Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is calculated. By understanding machine conditions like blocked, starved, out-of-automatic-mode, and offline, improvements can be made to the flow of units through the plant. If there are parallel processes and are not equally utilized, efficiencies will be gained in their transport or the proceeding or subsequent operations. Similarly, comparing machines for out-of-automatic-mode will lead to improvements in preventative, predictive, and prescriptive maintenance. Process Monitoring DDM is undertaken primarily for the improvement of quality and consistency. Every process is based in physics and has an underlying transfer function (The output Y is a function of the input x's). As the inputs are monitored and controlled to desired values, the quality of the product improves. Consider a process where energy absorption is required to change a characteristic of a material surface. It is known that to create an acceptable Paul C. Susalla
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