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The latest real-time software solutions help shops collect, manage, and analyze critical factory-floor data
Manufacturing software solutions for collecting, managing, and analyzing critical shop-floor data offer manufacturers realtime views into factory equipment performance and overall plant effectiveness.
With shop-management software for data collection and analysis, plant managers and machine operators can quickly spot plant bottlenecks that are hindering factory-floor processes. The latest software solutions for collecting and analyzing factory-floor data span a wide range of applications, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI), and shop-floor data-management systems.
Getting fast, reliable data from the shop floor into shop-management solutions is key for manufacturers that must quickly react by shifting their production to meet changes demanded by rapidly changing markets. "One of the things obviously that's really important for manufacturers today is equipment optimization," notes Dave Lechleitner, senior product expert for Exact Software (Minneapolis), developer of JobBoss software. "What we envision is helping the shop monitor in real-time the performance of machines, sending any exception information back to the ERP system or to any other monitoring system that they may have."
With the latest JobBoss Version 11, users can take advantage of the system's new ShopBoss advanced scheduling module, which aids tying information in real-time to production systems. "The data being collected out there on the shop floor is useful for the ERP system or the MES system, and we have a manufacturing execution system embedded in our product, called ShopBoss, which provides that realtime data on jobs, whether there are problems with jobs falling behind schedule," Lechleitner adds. "One of the two primary reasons people will look at JobBoss in particular is for costing and shop-floor scheduling."
The JobBoss package also runs on PC-based controls such as Okuma America's (Charlotte, NC) latest THINC machine controls, allowing an operator or foreman to quickly check job performance on the shop floor.
"What this brings to the table is where a shop would've had to wait maybe eight hours to get that data actually input manually into the system, now because of the data coming in real-time, the owner or a shop foreman can now monitor the shop performance in real-time," says Lechleitner. "It provides a visual of wherever the shop is...