Using manufacturing measurement visualization to improve performance

Abstract

Paper discusses how manufacturing process can be measured and represented visually in order to help employees react quickly to new occurrences that may compromise effectiveness or production process itself. Suggested measurement and visualization methods include real-time manufacturing progress monitoring (internal and external logistics of materials, internal and external manufacturing progress) and real-time equipment workload monitoring (productive and unproductive work time, resource consumption effectiveness). Methods were implemented in Stevila Ltd. in the end of year 2010. According to result obtained in 2010, 2011, and 2012, proposed methods proved to be very effective in increasing production on schedule rates. Also, experiment indicates that equipment workload visualization makes manufacturing process more transparent, helps identifying issues and provides information that is vital for process improvement.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.20.1.3514