By Steve Bieszczat, chief marketing officer, DELMIAWorks
Like manufacturing in general, plastics processing is in the midst of a generational shift where the workers who have maintained operations for decades are retiring and being replaced by newer generations that have grown up on technology. These employees want access to the latest tools and technologies to maximize their productivity and achieve their full potential.
As a result, attractive wages and other compensation are not enough for plastics processors to recruit and retain employees in what remains a highly competitive market for skilled workers. Instead, manufacturers in the plastics industry need to invest in automation that offloads employees from simple, redundant tasks; enables them to focus on higher-level functions; and gives them the insights to make better, actionable decisions. It’s a win-win approach that translates into more value for the company and more opportunities for workers’ professional development.
The following are seven ways plastics processors can go beyond the use of robots and smart machines to automate operations across the front office and shop floor to attract and retain employees.
Workflows and Alerts Across Operations
Workflows and alerts are essential to front-office and shop-floor automation. Workflows create an automatic path for data and processes. A good example is a purchase order that never sees paper but nonetheless flows through the creation, approval and vendor process without manual operations – even automatically pushing the order higher up the approval chain if, for example, the controller is out of the office.
Alerts, on the other hand, manage exceptions. For instance, sensors can track if a machine’s cycles are slower than expected, triggering alerts to an engineer about a potential malfunction and to management about a pending
production delay.
The automation of workflows and alerts using modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology eliminates time wasted so workers can focus on more productive tasks that move the business forward, creating a rewarding work environment.
Design Automation
Computer-aided design (CAD) has been a go-to engineering automation tool for years. Now digital simulation and testing are becoming mainstream processes for many manufacturers. The concept of the digital twins allows engineers to fine-tune designs well before building prototypes and final products. This allows designers more freedom to experiment without risking the cost of multiple trial-and-error prototypes. Digital simulation capabilities also widen the creative envelope for engineers, which makes it a very attractive recruiting tool.
Sales Orders
Consider the case where a sales order arrives electronically. A modern ERP system registers the demand automatically and checks the customer status in accounts receivable. If the customer has established credit, the ERP software creates the demand in the system, which then triggers an audit of available finished goods inventory. If there’s sufficient inventory, the software creates the pick, pack and ship instructions for the warehouse along with the new accounts receivable entries. The order will ship with no one outside of the warehouse performing any manual actions.
If there is insufficient inventory and product must be built, the order workflow checks for available raw materials, tooling, production equipment and labor. If the ERP software finds all the necessary resources, the job automatically is scheduled and runs in some future production window. If, for instance, there’s a lack of raw materials, the software produces a purchase order for the raw materials and creates a production schedule based upon the known lead time for them.
These examples illustrate the impacts of digital data, automatic calculations and automated workflows. The order entry desk can answer the customer order inquiry in real time instead of conferring manually with multiple departments. This transforms the sales desk position from a go-between information conduit into a valuable asset for both customers and operations.
Inventory Management
Inventory is one of a manufacturer’s larger cash investments, so optimizing inventory levels is essential. There must be enough inventory on hand to support customer needs even as the investment in inventory is minimized. To compound matters, inventory constantly is flowing in and out of the business. In a manual system keeping accurate track of inventory involves a lot of data entry, counting and manual reconciliations.
Automated inventory control systems digitally track the flow of goods using electronic purchase orders, automated receiving and scanning of goods at the production work centers. Purchasing then can use accurate information to quickly determine inventory requirements and anticipate needs. This drastically reduces last-minute manual inventory audits and the need to expedite materials.
Automated inventory control, and its analog function of automated sales forecasting, are two examples of machine intelligence eliminating the need for mundane data entry and physical audits, allowing employees to focus on forward-looking goals like fine-tuning vendor strategies, optimizing order points and driving up inventory turnover.
Production Operations
The possibilities for automating production operations are limitless. Top of mind today is the ability to use easy-to-train collaborative robots (cobots) and automated vision systems to perform routine tasks, such as picking, assembling, inspecting and packaging to automate the work center and reduce the dependence on shop floor labor.
But not every job can be automated, and even highly automated businesses typically have shop floor personnel overseeing work centers. Here, an essential chemistry for driving shop floor job satisfaction is combining enablement with variety – empowering workers to do multiple jobs by automatically making the information required to do those jobs readily available to them directly at the work center.
The necessary information to complete the job successfully and independently can be written instructions, machine settings, inspection requirements, process videos, and visual samples of good and bad parts.
The scenario is the realization of the connected worker, a strategy that drives employee satisfaction, recruiting and retention. Simultaneously, it reduces the number of shop floor workers needed since they can be assigned to multiple tasks and quickly moved from job to job.
Warehouse Operations
Picture being given a list of part numbers to pick from the warehouse. Pick one, mark it off. Go to the next, walk across the warehouse to find it, mark it off and go on to find the next item. When you’re done, go to a terminal and enter all the pick information. This manual process is neither productive nor rewarding.
By contrast, imagine holding a scanning gun that directs you to the items in their physical warehouse sequence, picking the items, scanning the part numbers and quantities as you go, and proceeding directly to disposition the materials to a work center or the shipping dock. This is an example of automated warehouse operations that build employee satisfaction while cutting operating costs.
Conclusion
In today’s labor market, plastics processors who simply rely on monetary compensation too often end up hiring workers who will jump to the next company that offers a higher hourly wage. Forward-thinking plastics manufacturers are putting a halt to this revolving door by investing not only in higher wages and improved employee communications and recognition but also in automation that makes jobs less routine and more impactful. This allows workers to contribute at a level of productivity that fits into their generational expectations and paves the way for improved employee hiring and retention, as earlier generations leave the workforce and newer generations become the backbone of the plastics industry.
Steve Bieszczat is responsible for DELMIAWorks brand management, demand generation and product marketing. Bieszczat’s focus is on aligning products with industry requirements, as well as positioning DELMIAWorks with the strategic direction and requirements of the brand’s manufacturing customers and prospects.
More information: www.solidworks.com/delmiaworks-manufacturing-erp
