Dashboards and management tools
Knowing what's happening in real time? Is it really possible?
Have you ever dreamed of sitting in your office with multiple screens and being able to see everything that is going on in your facility both with images as well as production data, quality control elements, maintenance and servicing interventions, etc. which are generated in real time?
Well it is a reality for some but it is still a minority given the costs that it represents .
The advent of the Internet of Things or " IOT " and the 5G network make all of this much easier and less expensive.
It is also not to be neglected that the dashboards and the management tools which are at your fingertips are also already powerful and will become even more so with these new technologies.
How to build dashboards useful for decision making?
Even if your equipment is not yet all connected to cloud computing, the famous " Cloud ", or that it is not all connected to your computer network; there are still several things to do to take advantage of dashboards and management tools.
The basis of dashboards and management tools is data. To effectively reap all the benefits, data entry should be done directly into a computer, tablet or mobile phone and no longer on paper. Otherwise it may be more difficult prone to data entry errors and not at all in real time.
Once your data is on your network or online, you can use them. The vast majority of equipment, machines or devices today have a computerized interface that you can take advantage of now. While this is not always the case, older equipment has an analog interface that can be used to capture and transform analog signals into actionable/numerical data.
Once you have the data you can start exploiting them and you don't have to wait to computerize everything before taking advantage of it. Take it gradually and you will be able to identify the flaws and weaknesses to correct as you go.
Focus on the operations that have the most impact on performance or on those which, if they do not perform at the desired level, could earn you a CAR or a major non-compliance that would cause operations to stop.
Why?
Simply because if you are able to follow what is happening in real time for one or more equipment crucial to the operation of your establishment, you will also be able to detect trends that tell you that a problem is imminent or that yields are dropping gradually for example. You can then intervene before it happens and limit the impacts as well as any losses.
Examples
Example 1: When you weigh products continuously and have to comply with legal weight tolerances; it is in your interest not to lose control, especially if your operating speed is high. By capturing data from the scales that weigh your products and by building a dashboard that shows you the limits to be respected, the gaps and the weighings in real time; you will be able to detect drifts and stop the line that may be in trouble to make a one-time adjustment before it is too late.
In this way:
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You avoid continuing to produce and accumulate products :
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which do not comply
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that need to be sorted
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some of which will need to be reworked and repackaged
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You prevent losses and help you control your production costs
Example 2: When you have to cook a product according to a validated cooking schedule to guarantee its shelf life; you have to be able to prove that everything has been done according to the schedule. So instead of having someone with a stopwatch and thermometer in hand, you can use data from your equipment or just install a probe that will give you the data in real time. This probe can even be part of a control module that will control everything. So you can react and adjust everything in real time before it's too late and avoid to start over or throw away the product.
We are able to help you build and use simple tools to build imaged dashboards that allow you to leverage your production data while allowing you to track your returns and avoid losing control. This will allow you to continue to meet regulatory and normative compliance requirements and those of your customers (including those stipulated in the GFSI standards). You will also realize that dashboards and management tools will save you time and money in addition to improving your ROI.