MESA Southern Africa 2011 theme
May 2011
News
Innovation and flexibility in manufacturing execution
The current economic climate and changing consumer patterns have resulted in a greater need for innovation and flexibility than ever. Product portfolios are becoming more customised and need to reach the market quicker and typically have shorter life spans and smaller scale opportunities. Manufacturing needs to be extremely flexible and innovative to deliver on the demands of marketing and its consumers and needs to deliver faster, more reliably and cheaper.
Manufacturing execution systems (MES) play a critical role in enabling these capabilities. This year’s theme will accommodate topics about systems such as:
* Product development and definition systems allow shorter time from product conception (design) to full production.
* Supply chain management, planning, integration and visibility tools provide greater scheduling and planning capability in turn driving down response time and improving on the flexibility of business.
* Integrated quality management reduces the need for rework and identifies critical improvement areas allowing a move to six levels of defects.
* Historians allow storage of production data for later analysis and problem solving enabling rapid turnaround in resolution and identifying opportunities and process bottlenecks.
* Manufacturing information systems capture and present key business metrics (typically in dashboards) that allow both strategic planning and operational efficiency management.
* Solutions within operations not traditionally classified as MES.
There are no doubt countless industry examples where manufacturing execution systems have played a significant role in driving ‘Innovation and flexibility in manufacturing’ within southern Africa.
For more information contact Gerhard Greeff, Bytes Systems Integration, +27 (0)82 654 0290, gerhard.greef@bytes.co.za, www.bytes.co.za
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