VIEWPOINT | THE MISSING LINK IN FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING

The auto industry knows that a major key to competing successfully in today's global markets is flexible manufacturing. Short product development cycles, ever-changing consumer demand and the need to expand vehicle models across fewer platforms all but demand production facilities that can shift gears quickly. But even highly flexible manufacturing facilities may lack the required agility to define the true scope of the problem. Fred Thomas, industry director at Apriso Corp., comments on the issues and how to address them.

Where is the biggest risk in flexible manufacturing strategies?

Flexible production facilities are important, but they are only one dimension of a more complex issue. It's not enough simply to give a factory the flexibility to switch among several products. You also need an equally agile way to manage the materials and process that impact the plant itself. That means a system that can provide very fast defect identification and isolation of components regardless of which product the plant is making at the moment. We refer to this as traceability and containment.

Aren't companies doing that already?

They're trying. Most are adopting upstream measures such as early warning systems to alert them to problems so they can respond ahead of a government-ordered recall. The trend toward using fewer but larger suppliers reduces the number of sources to check. But you still need a good back-end system in manufacturing that can isolate the problem and minimize the cost of an effective response.

It's this back-end traceability and containment function that needs attention. Most companies believe their legacy systems do a good job. But when a recall situation occurs, they find out otherwise. There are many examples of car companies forced to recall tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of vehicles to find a few hundred with a defective part because they can't track the problem more precisely. Or their systems are so convoluted and disconnected that it takes significantly longer to identify and isolate the problem. This results in the manufacturer of thousands, and maybe hundreds of thousands of additional parts or product, that must be recalled.

What makes traceability so difficult?

It's challenging enough to track materials and processes within a single plant. Its considerably more complex when you're building the same product or component on multiple shifts in multiple plants scattered around the world. Each facility may have its own systems for managing production and quality, including traceability and containment. This lack of common processes and systems increases variability and ultimately slows response in a crisis situation.

Adding to the difficulty are faster product development cycles. Global design and engineering centers result in continuous innovation for global platforms across the entire product range. The accelerated pace and need to coordinate everything on a global scale can cause a collaboration and communication nightmare trying to identify a problem and stop using defective parts.

What makes companies hesitate to upgrade to better solutions?

Many companies are not convinced there are better options out there. They have staff or vendors to develop solutions for them, and the resulting system becomes very ingrained in manufacturing operations.

There's significant pride of ownership, especially among the IT people who maintain these management tools. They're likely to consider their job security tied up in their ability to understand how to operate the legacy system. They can become heavily invested in the status quo, no matter how antiquated it may be, and that makes them reluctant to even consider a better approach. They honestly believe they have an effective solution, but a defective part situation exposes the shortcomings.

There's also inertia to consider. Nobody wants to brag about installing a new system to more accurately identify defects and other problems. Companies don't want to admit they have to put such a solution in place. Yet at end of day, they must look at it. Fortunately, there is a growing recognition within the industry of the gap between what's needed in terms of traceability and what companies are actually doing. We're seeing a lot of activity.

What does Apriso offer?

Our traceability solution can globally trace and contain a product "spill," such as what has recently been plaguing the automotive industry. Our enterprise manufacturing intelligence solution built on Microsoft SharePoint and Lync technologies enables multi-plant collaboration when there's a problem with a component. FlexNet is an award-winning solution for managing global manufacturing operations, which brings these capabilities to the shop floor and, for example, can automatically reject bad material or parts when they arrive at the next work station once detected.

What is your advice for companies that are contemplating a changeover?

First of all, we believe companies should do due diligence on their vendors. They also need to closely govern a project. Nothing is without risk. But choosing the right partners and actively overseeing the implementation process mitigates the risk.

The big question is how to balance speed and accuracy. How precisely can you identify a problem and isolate it to a specific population? And how long does it take? These elements determine whether a solution is low-cost and low-profile or the opposite.

To learn more about Apriso, please contact Shawn Maguire at (508) 622-0522 or shawn.maguire@apriso.com.