Enterprise and production Management in the wood and furniture industry today are confronted with the permanent challenge of having to cope with growing regional competition.

1. Basics
Process parameter analysis Analysis of events which caused stoppages Overview of stacking area in production
Optimised
work process is enhanced, and all
orders can be precisely recalculated
at any point in time.
Given the fact that data capture
is still conducted manually in many
manufacturing
factories, there are naturally limits
to the frequency of acquisition and
the number of changes that can be
made in acquisition routines. Then
there is the risk that errors will oc-
casionally creep into manual data
An MES solution for KPI analysis acquisition, especially when the
operation of machines, production
and process monitoring lines and plants, the tracking of pro-
duction batches and the recording of
measurement data are all achieved
using separate systems.
Thomas Schulz
Enterprise and pro- such enterprises. Every unscheduled In such cases the generation of
downtime of machines and industrial reports with overviews and histories
duction management Wood fibre products of a defined plants not only reduces productivity can be extremely difficult. And this is
in the wood and furni- technical and ecological quality and utilisation of capacity but also often where the problem lies – many
must be sold at a price that secures very much compromises the logistics a manager has to spend so much
ture industry today are
them their traditional areas of use process within a factory. time chasing the latest data that
confronted with the when faced not only with this com- The more the pressure for ac- they hardly have time to sit down
permanent challenge petition but also with substitute tion and decisions grows, the more and evaluate it, and to forward the
materials. Yet wood is treated and ur-gent is management‘s need for information and findings while they
of having to cope with processed in different ways. Compe- all relevant information from the are still fresh.
growing regional com- titiveness is ensured by tracking and on-going manufacturing process
improving production processes, by to support it in major decisions. Manufacturing
petition. developing process models and by Current information about the achie- execution systems
using continuous process controls in vement of objectives and continuous Manufacturing execution sys-
the assurance of product quality. comparisons of target and actual tems (MES) have particularly proven
The consequences for manufac- values from the manufacturing pro- their worth in highly competitive
turing are constantly changing pri- cess make it possible to detect an environments such as the wood and
orities, quantities and product lines, approaching operative bottleneck furniture industry. These are soluti-
which ultimately and repeatedly lead and take the right countermeasures ons that create a link between the
to new planning rules and changes in good time. open process control systems used
in manufacturing conditions. Modern Obtaining as immediate a look at the manufacturing level and plant
factory structures show the way to as possible at what is happening management level, logistic or finan-
satisfying the demands made by the in ongoing processes calls for the cial systems being utilised in the
market for faster delivery and thus permanent supply of a variety of pre- latter. They join the ERP applications
improved logistic performance. cise and updated information from and the controlling systems of the
Dipl.-Ing.
all relevant manufacturing sectors. pro-duction world in real time with
Thomas Schulz is Releasing untapped Acquiring and saving data from the the purpose of making processes
Account Manager reserves manufacturing process is a basic re- faster, more economical and more
Software at Rockwell Increasing automation of indus- quisite for all later evaluations. It not secure.
Automation, respon-
trial production processes and the only makes processes in manufac- Manufacturing execution sys-
sible for customers in
Northern Germany greater complexity of the applied turing transparent, but also ensures tems enable enterprises to match
re-sources make high demands of the existence of accurate process their production speedily and flexib-
www.rockwellautomation.com the manufacturing organisation of documentation, the quality of the ly to a changed market and demand.
2 PRAXIS Profiline – MES – April 2007

2. Basics
a process shows instabilities. In ad-
dition to a process’s history, a portal
will allow viewing of ongoing proces-
ses at any time. Supporting graphics
as well as simple text presentations
are possible. Various export possi-
bilities to conventional file formats
like Excel or PDF are integrated for
transmission to users through the
internal enterprise network.
Overview of press area in production Analysis of job orders and product quality for
the coating system
Summary
The process improvements cre-
At the same time the purpose is to ported by statistical parameters and (OEE) figure. Three factors are ated by an MES system also mean
minimise inventory in the manufac- trend analyses. essential for this: availability, per- a faster time to market and faster
turing sector and in finished parts For efficient and seamless trace- formance rate and the quality rate ramp-up to high-volume production.
stock, thus significantly cutting ability of the individual operations, of the manufactured products. Once This is especially important when
production costs. The result is a all of the data is acquired during analysed and interpreted, this infor- launching new wood fibre products
markedly improved customer service production and is administered and mation shows concealed potential within a narrow time frame.
level, which obviously ultimately im- documented in the system. This for optimisation in production. It is Every delay during production
proves customer satisfaction. entails complete mapping of all pro- also possible to directly see the suc- start-up results in irreparable losses
The foundation of an integrated, duct and production data in the cess or failure of measures that have in profit. Through the greater trans-
modular MES system is the under- system. The process of manufactu- been introduced. parency of manufacturing resources,
lying factory data model based on ring a single batch can be accurately Manufacturing costs are depend- the MES system allows precise
the ISA-95 standard. Powerful data retraced in this way. Monitoring is an ent on factors like the expended calculation of their utilisation. This
management functions secure the indispensable aid for this purpose. work effort, throughput time, the information helps the process engi-
availability of master data for re- The basic idea is to acquire the key necessity for retooling machines and neer to investigate downtimes more
source, product and process models, performance indicators of the ma- the volume of production. Manufac- closely and to optimise maintenance
created and administered by modern nufacturing process and to present turing costs are influenced most of intervals. This, in turn, can create
tools. Later add-ons or expansion them in real time. all by the throughput time and the extra manufacturing time or further
possibilities ensure protection of Operative monitoring shows annual production volume. The ma- capacity.
the buyer‘s investment for years to the current situation within the ximising of machine utilisation and
come. production control process in real production yield ultimately serves to
The data in question relates to time. If there are any deviations maximise production volume while
articles, capacity, human resources, from the original plan, it is conse- constantly minimising the through-
shift models, scheduled mainte- quently possible to intervene and put time.
nance of machines and industrial correct the ongoing process almost Even small improvements in the
plants, allocation of machines and immediately. Greater transparency manufacturing process or machine
plants to manufacturing jobs, toge- means that process instabilities can utilisation can lead to substantial
ther with appropriate feedback from be identified and eliminated faster, cost-savings and better profitability.
the actual production process. thus increasing production yield The profitable marketing of high-
This is consequently an impor- and reducing the effort involved in tech products is usually only possi-
tant tool for production planning reworking. ble in very short time frames, so the
and concentrates primarily on the Tactical monitoring supports the faster time to market of the product
end-product. The MES system starts continuous improvement process in offers potential for a bigger return.
with product data like parts lists and production. The focus is on visuali-
process plans and guides the user sation and evaluation of structural Reporting
through the reserving of raw mate- strengths and weaknesses along the Integrated reporting is also an
rials and the actual manufacture of process chain. Efficient methods are important function, indeed an es-
the product right up to packing and needed to analyse the numerous sential one for solid decisions by
order picking. factors influencing production yield management. The more transparent
and machine utilisation. As a means and better structured the reports
Key performance of deriving improvement measures that are generated, the faster the
indicator analysis for the present and future, past right decisions relating to produc-
The aim of a detailed key per- processes and performance are tion can be made.
formance indicator (KPI) analysis is visualised and regularly analysed
to produce an indepth evaluation to compare their effectiveness with All information available in the
of the manufacturing performance current situations. system can be presented, depending
of all machines, product lines and on access rights. Mark-up languages
plants as a means of continuous OEE – open communication standards
im-provement. This analysis is based Productivity in manufacturing such as HTML or XML – enable fast
essentially on a comparison of can be precisely determined by the real-time access to process data,
tar-get and actual values and is sup- overall equipment effectiveness simplifying immediate correction if
PRAXIS Profiline – MES – April 2007 3