AspectPT has developed a three stage business approach to unlocking the hidden potential of your factory resulting in a significant increase in bottom line profits for your business.

Production Rules

For the manufacturing process to be optimized it is very important that each product made is made to a consistent formula. This information is kept as a detailed production rule and used every time the product is made.

The production rules should reflect accurate shot times, product weights, raw material specification, alternative machine and tool combinations and the expected raw material usage based on the equipment being used.

Planning
AspectPL includes the following planning capabilities:

• Avoids activity conflicts such as tool setters being allocated to multiple jobs at the same time
  
  
• Optimizes the use of labor resources for the mix of jobs being run in the factory at any one time
  
  
• Calculate the raw materials requirements for the whole plant over a given time period so that ‘Just-In–Time’ ordering of raw material can be invoked to minimize raw material stock
  
  
• Enables the tools and raw materials to be prepared in advance of the job starting
  
  
• Ensures complete production run is on time and full (OTIF)

Scheduling
AspectPL’s ADV Scheduler is:

• Accurate - it’s in real time so it is always up to date
  
  
• Dynamic - the impact of any activity on the factory floor can be seen instantly. This would include the impact of new jobs being scheduled and down times on specific machines and most importantly the impact of the job actually being run is reflected on the schedule. The monitor alerts management when machines are down.
  
  
• Visual - AspectPL's ADV Scheduler is very visual and has an intuitive user interface operated using drag and drop functionality. The schedule can be managed with "drag and drop" ease.

The Business Advantage of Planning & Scheduling

• More responsive to customer queries about probable job completion times
• The ability to try ‘what if’ scenarios with the job mix
• Able to respond to customer queries concerning when jobs might start and end
• The scheduling function is able to be done quicker and much more cost effectively
• Considerable savings are to be made from ordering exactly the right amount of specific raw materials
• Considerable savings are to be made from engaging exactly the right labor requirements for the factory for any given period

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RT Monitor

The second stage in unlocking your factory's hidden capacity involves closely monitoring every aspect of the progress of each job and the status of every machine at all times.

The factory floor is a very dynamic, constantly changing environment and the likelihood of order status, cycle time, scrap and down time information, set up and tool changeover time and resources and capacity data being accurate and up to date is low if the information is not being collected automatically. The focus of the operation is to attain better yields, shorter cycle times and increased quality while at the same time being capable of handling dynamic demand fluctuation. AspectPL makes this happen.

AspectPL is connected to every manufacturing machine and the RT Monitor monitors progress of every job in real-time. Issues can be identified and an operator directed to resolve them immediately. Also factory personnel can record specific production information such as type of rejects and the weight of the product being made (AspectPL connects directly to weighing scales to facilitate this).

The Business Advantage of Monitoring

• Operational issues, such as rejects, can be identified and rectified when they happen
• It is easy to identify when jobs are not running to specification and by making adjustments to the production, accurate information collected can be used to provide a comprehensive audit trail and fed back to the ERP system for accurate back costing. This information includes:
  
  
  • Equipment utilised
  • Actual production time
  • Number of units manufactured
  • Number of rejects
  • Total job time
  • Total up time
  • Total setup time

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Business Intelligence & Decision Support System

Data collected by the Real-time Monitor is utilized in a series of reports. Careful analysis of this information will identify issues and opportunities to maximize overall factory output. The information is especially useful for 3 reasons:

• Real-time data - the information is collected in real-time so it is accurate and relevant.
• Single measure of productivity – AspectPL reports on productivity using a measure of OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) so productivity can be easily compared to Worlds Best Practice and earlier similar events such as the same job, the same shift and the same tool.
• Drill down to specific issues - the information can be viewed on an exception basis in order to drill down to specific details.

Analysis of the information will reveal spare capacity by identifying areas where it is possible to implement operational improvements that will make a real difference in keeping machines running at their optimum level of productivity.  Analysis of information will reveal:

• Availability issues
• Performance issues
• Quality issues

The Business Advantage of Boosting Productivity

In today’s intensely competitive markets, the manufacturer’s mission is to do more with less and do it faster, better and cheaper. To accomplish this manufacturers need real-time information to determine the root cause of bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Creating more with less resource will unlock your factory’s hidden capacity. More importantly the return from utilizing the extra capacity revealed is likely to be in the order of a 50% profit margin. This super profit revealed is because all the normal business overheads have already been paid for by the existing work.

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Users of AspectPL, who effectively implement AspectPL, have been shown to enjoy a dramatic improvement in productivity of up to 20% with a substantial return on investment which ultimately flows through to a much improved financial position.

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