Mike Nashadka
Mike is the Vice President of Manufacturing Execution Systems for 42Q.
Manufacturing is complex today, in many ways more complex than ever. The amazing products that some companies churn out today would have seemed like science fiction 30 years ago. Customers want more of these products, faster, smaller and cheaper. At the same time, costs for equipment, labor and components have risen significantly.
So manufacturers do what manufacturers have always done. Yes, they cry a little. But then they call their moms to apologize for what they said, pick themselves up and adapt. This pattern has led to the industrial revolution (although back then they had to apologize in person), the assembly line, lean manufacturing, Industry 4.0, Six Sigma and many other innovations. Each manufacturer will set up their process to be exactly what is necessary for their environment, to optimize time, minimize waste and eliminate defects. That’s where 42Q comes in.
42Q’s process control mechanism will support anything that you need to do, without sacrificing control or visibility. Sometimes the process calls for all of the products to follow the exact same process, and really this is the simple use case that almost never happens. Sometimes each product needs a separate route. Sometimes it makes sense to create miniature routes and chain them together for the individual assemblies. Sometimes it makes sense for each step to be an individual workstation, and sometimes there are many workstations that could perform that same process for that assembly. If the process is simple, straightforward and defined in the ERP, 42Q can deal with that too.
Debug and repair loops can be added to any step, and if there are additional troubleshooting steps that need to be used under some circumstances, those can be added to the configuration as well. There are also mechanisms for sampling (periodic inspections), adding additional steps for just a single unit or production order and much more. Exceptional processes are still processes, and those should be tracked and visible just like any other process.
42Q allows manufacturers to manage their particular manufacturing environment, no matter how simple or complex. There is no guarantee that there won’t occasionally be tears, but 42Q can help ensure that they will not be caused by lost units or skipped steps in the production process.