AVEVA, a global leader in engineering and industrial software, has unveiled its new Discrete Lean Management software to support Digital Transformation in the discrete manufacturing market.
The new offering improves operational efficiency through the digitalisation of lean work management for both manual and automated production lines. AVEVA’s quick-to-deploy and easy to use digital tools enable access to production information, KPIs and notifications on dashboards, workstations and mobile devices to improve overall equipment and labour effectiveness, and to facilitate data-driven continuous improvement.
AVEVA Discrete Lean Management is designed to address the issues faced by operating manufacturing plants still using paper-based systems for lean and work order management, work instructions and data collection procedures. It enables physical records to be replaced with digital tools that mitigate the risk of manual processes and provides real time visibility into production performance allowing team collaboration in response to production issues.
Harpreet Gulati, Senior Vice President, Planning and Operations at AVEVA, said: “AVEVA Discrete Lean Management is the result of our close collaboration with Schneider-Electric and has been already successfully deployed as a digital lean system to many of their plants globally.
“We are excited to be able to announce the general availability of these proven lean and industry best practices to all our customers to help improve their manufacturing productivity and profitability, and also jumpstart their smart manufacturing and Digital Transformation journeys.”
Yielding successful results in Schneider Electric Manufacturing Plants
The AVEVA Discrete Lean Management software solution is used in Schneider Electric’s manufacturing plants and has been successfully deployed in more than 70 smart factories globally resulting in a 10% productivity increase due to downtime mitigation and 70% improved response-time due to automated escalation of production issues.
The World Economic Forum has commended four of Schneider Electric’s Smart Factories for comprehensively deploying a wide range of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and use cases at scale, while keeping people and sustainability at the heart of their innovation strategies.
“We are delighted at the results we’ve achieved to date by deploying the AVEVA Discrete Lean Management solution in our manufacturing plants, as part of our Smart Factory initiative,” said Hany Fouda, VP Systems Portfolio, Process Automation, Schneider Electric.
“Our Smart Factory programme is focused on deploying technology that is easy to implement and scale quickly, including our EcoStruxure solutions, to deliver efficiency and sustainability. AVEVA’s solution helped us achieve those goals by facilitating downtime mitigation and improving response time.
“We are confident that AVEVA is entering the Discrete Lean Management market at exactly the right time as demand accelerates for software solutions that can yield these kinds of results.”
The solution also helps to minimise the number of manual production and lean data collection tasks leveraging the full range of AVEVA’s connectivity to IoT devices and over 200 plant automation systems. AVEVA’s global presence and partner ecosystem enable manufacturing companies to execute their Industry 4.0 and manufacturing operations transformation strategies.
It is available as a part of the AVEVA Flex subscription programme, designed to give customers complete flexibility in the procurement, design, management and utilisation of their industrial control systems, empowering customers to adopt transformative technologies quicker and easier than ever.
We asked Dr Harpreet Gulati, Senior Vice President, Planning and Operations at AVEVA, further questions about the solution.
How does AVEVA Discrete Manufacturing Solution improve operational efficiency for production lines?
The new offering helps manufacturers to improve operational efficiency through the digitalisation of lean practices for both manual and automated production lines.
AVEVA Discrete Lean Management is designed to address the Digital Transformation needs of operating manufacturing plants using paper-based systems for lean management and data collection. It offers to replace paper prints-up with up-to-date work instructions and a user interface for production reporting, manufacturing performance monitoring and for digital team collaboration in response to production issues. To further minimise the number of distracting production reporting and lean data collection tasks the software includes connectivity with IOT devices and plant automation systems.
AVEVA’s quick-to-deploy and easy to use digital tools provide access to performance KPIs and current production issues on factory dashboards, workstations and mobile devices. Measuring, visualising and analysing production performance in near real time helps to improve overall equipment and labour effectiveness, and facilitates data-driven continuous improvement.
How do AVEVA’s digital tools enable access to production information?
There are a couple of dimensions to this. Firstly, through digitalisation, production results and events being recorded electronically, simplifying retrieval. Once recorded digitally, data can easily have analysis applied to it to yield greater insight. The outcome of this analysis can be visually presented to operators or teams, “by exception,” the typical red, yellow, green of lean management; where the reds are given immediate prominence.
The second dimension is the general availability of production performance or event information to everyone, everywhere. With Discrete Lean Management, data and analysis can be accessed in multiple formats and locations. That might mean large screen KPI and Andon boards mounted in production areas where users can see information at a glance, typical workstation type access from fixed workstations in the office, control room, or plant floor, or mobile devices such as phones and tablets which allow access anywhere the user may be.
What sort of information is available to users and what is the value of it?
Discrete Lean Management provides primarily two types of information. The first is information that is needed for production, such as work order details, or work instructions to perform the specified manufacturing tasks. Providing this information digitally error proofs operations, ensuring everyone has the latest and correct information, with no chance for memory lapses or transcribing errors.
The second type of information is around continuous improvement, both short term (i.e. short interval control) and long term. Measuring and displaying metrics and digital notifications of issues in near real time allows immediate corrective actions. Whether this is a downtime event for a line being logged, or the flagging, escalation and resolution of a production problem using the Andon module. This type of information, and metrics like OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) and OLE (overall labour effectiveness) that provide performance benchmarks help drive improved results and provide a basis for continuous improvement by analysing and addressing root causes.
Do some manufacturing businesses still need to be encouraged to move away from paper-based systems? How are they persuaded to do so?
Manufacturers often struggle to justify the investment into digital technologies because they are not able to predict the return of investment. Unfortunately, this inability is directly linked to the lack of data and tools for the required visibility into the improvement potentials. To overcome this deadlock situation manufacturers can find published insights from peers and leaders in the industry or can look for consultant’s advice to understand the benefits of such investment. Discrete Lean Management captures several industry standard best practices such as measuring, visualising and analysing KPI’s and capturing downtime and quality loss reasons, which have proven their value. Additional there have been many reports and papers written around the benefits of digitalisation and how digitalisation is able to elevate the benefits of Lean practices.
What are the benefits of real time visibility into production performance?
Visibility of production performance and into the related details in near real time empower individuals and teams to take instant corrective actions and helps minimising waste of time and effort in up and downstream operations.
It additionally helps to establish a culture of continuous improvement and responsibility for production and business performance within the plant operations teams.
The AVEVA Discrete Lean Management software solution is used in Schneider Electric’s manufacturing plants and has been successfully deployed in more than 70 smart factories globally resulting a 10% productivity increase due to downtime mitigation and 70% improved response-time due to automated escalation of production issues.
Is AVEVA Discrete Manufacturing Solution suitable for all of the different aspects of manufacturing?
As the name would suggest the offer is aimed at the discrete manufacturing market, and this is its sweet spot; as a digitalisation tool for lean practices. Through our work bringing digitalisation to the Schneider Electric factories we have found that DLM brings significant value to a broad range of manufacturing situations. The core principle of lean, elimination of waste, applies pretty much across the spectrum of assembly and physical processes, and where lean is applied, we see DLM providing value.
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