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Accurate production data is the cornerstone of confident decision-making. Whether you're managing a small shop or a large manufacturing plant, the ability to make the right calls swiftly can significantly impact your operations, making them smoother and more profitable.
So when you fall short of your production goals, it’s just as important to understand why as it is to make a quick decision. In other words, before you rush into purchasing more machinery, hiring additional staff, or extending shifts, it's crucial to understand the root cause of your problem.
Productivity losses often stem from:
However, relying solely on manually collected data from your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system may not provide the precision needed to identify these root causes effectively.
This is where Amper FactoryOS steps in. Amper augments your ERP data with precise details about utilization, downtime, and cycle counts. This means you’ll be able to confidently see whether the cause of your problems is coming from inefficiencies, inaccurate standards, or genuine capacity constraints.
With Amper, you can do just that, paving the way for effective changes in your operations. Let’s get into how.
Capacity constraints can pose significant challenges for manufacturers. They often lead to costly investments in new equipment or personnel. However, before expanding your resources, it's important to make sure that you're maximizing the utilization of existing assets.
Amper's Utilization Summary Dashboard shows you a comprehensive overview of part, machine, shift, and operator performance. Utilization can tell you a lot about your operations by revealing trends in capacity and runtime. Without insight into how your equipment is performing, you’ll always be making decisions in the dark.
And as you continue to track this, over time, utilization data can build a clear picture of your actual capacity–helping you make smarter decisions around capital expenditures and staffing.
Figuring out the nuances of your inefficiencies can help with a number of decisions that will effectively improve productivity. That’s where tracking downtime reasons comes in handy.
In Amper, the Downtime Explorer Dashboard helps you dissect the complexities of machine downtime. By categorizing and quantifying downtime events, you can identify recurring issues that hamper productivity.
Whether it's setup delays, maintenance inefficiencies, or unexpected breakdowns, the dashboard provides a detailed breakdown of each downtime instance, shedding light on the factors contributing to lost production hours.
Additionally, by labeling instances of downtime when work is available but no staff are present to operate machines, you can better determine the right time to hire. For example, in the image below, “need hire” makes up 21% of downtime.
By labeling downtime instances attributed to staffing shortages, you can identify the optimal timing and personnel requirements for hiring additional staff. For instance, if recurring downtime occurs during specific shifts or on certain days of the week, it may indicate a need for additional staff during those periods.
Manufacturing planning hinges on the accuracy of cycle time estimates and resource allocation. However, inaccurate standards can lead to skewed planning, resulting in underutilized resources or missed deadlines.
If you suspect your standards may be wrong, you can use the Target Tracker Dashboard in Amper to confirm and solve this. This feature compares a job’s cycle time against the standards set in your ERP system. It also shows you how frequently any deviation occurs, so you can see if it’s a one-off or a trend that needs addressing. By correcting discrepancies between actual cycle times and ERP-set standards, you lay the foundation for more precise planning and on-time deliveries.
For example, if a particular job consistently exceeds its estimated cycle time, it may indicate inefficiencies in the production process or inaccuracies in the initial standards. Armed with this knowledge, manufacturing leaders can adjust their planning parameters accordingly, allocating resources more effectively and optimizing overall workflow efficiency.
And with enhanced ERP data, you'll be able to plan each week more precisely and schedule jobs confidently on the best machines to run those jobs.
We know it can be hard to collect and use shop floor data correctly, and it can feel near impossible without accurate machine data and added context. Amper FactoryOS adds that extra layer of data, so you can understand inefficiencies, identify capacity bottlenecks, and ensure accurate standards.
Book a demo today to see how you could benefit from deploying Amper FactoryOS in your shop!
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