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With the advancement of technology in the modern era, many companies are implementing automated production lines to enhance production stability. The goal is to ensure consistent product quality and reduce the reliance on manual material handling, which can lead to product damage, loss, or occupational hazards. By implementing automated material handling solutions, companies aim to allow human labor to focus on production processes, minimizing potential issues and optimizing the shipment time and expected output of the production line. Furthermore, from a management perspective, integrating automated material handling solutions with upper-level systems such as MES (Manufacturing Execution System), WMS (Warehouse Management System), or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) provides enhanced visibility into production activities and facilitates effective coordination of production processes.

8 Key Points for Considering Automated Material Handling Solutions

1. How to establish efficient and effective material handling processes?

2. How to address labor shortages and reduce costs?

3. How to ensure stable and efficient product output, minimizing human errors?

4. How can AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles) replace human labor in environments with safety hazards?

5. How to achieve precise alignment for loading and unloading operations?

6. How to maximize the utilization of existing floor space and avoid congestion?

7. How to reduce fatigue for on-site operators involved in material handling and enable them to focus more on product manufacturing?

8. How to lower management costs and enhance production control through automated material handling, leading to improved production management?

Learn our AGV/AMR Automation System Integration

Evaluation of Automated Material Handling Solutions can be conducted from the following four perspectives

1. Application Scenario Analysis

Application scenario analysis focuses on the environment where the automated material handling solution is intended to be implemented. This includes factors such as handling frequency aligned with production cycles, handling paths for material transport, dimensions and packaging of the items being handled, load-bearing capacity of the site, surface flatness, and loading as well as unloading methods. Understanding and measuring these factors are crucial for planning and implementing the automated material handling solution, ensuring alignment with the desired goals.

2. Safety

In most manufacturing environments, production and material handling activities are performed in a collaborative manner between humans and machines. Therefore, the equipment used for automated material handling should comply with safety requirements specific to the site. This may involve installing safety devices such as obstacle-contact buffers, multi-channel proximity detection devices, safety protection mechanisms for automatic unloading, emergency stop features, etc. The safety measures should be assessed and implemented based on the specific site conditions, considering the factors of people, machines, materials, and the surrounding environment, to ensure safe operation after implementation.

3. Basic Parameters and Performance Indicators

After conducting the application scenario analysis and safety evaluation, the performance indicators for the desired automated material handling solution can be defined. These indicators may include guidance methods, types of drives, weight and load-bearing capacity of AGVs, operating speed, turning radius, precise positioning, alarm and emergency stop functionalities, as well as system integration requirements with upper-level systems.

4. After-Sales Service

Based on the evaluations of application scenarios, safety, and basic parameters and performance indicators, an initial understanding of the required equipment types, quantities, scheduling system functionalities, and corresponding hardware and software support can be obtained. When evaluating potential suppliers, in addition to the aforementioned evaluations, it is important to consider the after-sales service. This includes aspects such as responsiveness to general inquiries, system updates, maintenance for troubleshooting, and technical services (including design and installation) to ensure smooth daily operations and handling of any exceptional situations. Since the implementation of automated material handling solutions has comprehensive implications rather than just localized impacts on traditional production, it is advisable to include after-sales service evaluation as part of the assessment to mitigate potential risks.

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Are you evaluating automated material handling solutions? You can start by considering the 8 key points and 4 perspectives mentioned above. We are also here to assist and provide consultation.

We can help analyze your current situation, prioritize your requirements, and offer the most professional proposals. With our assistance, your factory can minimize unnecessary waste and enhance overall productivity after implementing an automated material handling solution.

In recent years, with the continuous development of technology, smart manufacturing has become an important direction for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. Smart manufacturing utilizes technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things to achieve the intelligence and automation of the manufacturing industry, making the manufacturing process more efficient, intelligent, and automated. Smart manufacturing plays an important role in the development of the manufacturing industry. This article will explore the significance, challenges, and future development directions of smart manufacturing.

Significance of Smart Manufacturing

Improving quality and production efficiency

Smart manufacturing can improve the degree of automation on the production line, reduce human intervention, and thereby improve production efficiency and product quality.

Reducing costs

Smart manufacturing can realize the digitization, intelligence, and automation of the production process, thereby reducing production costs and increasing the profitability of enterprises.

Upgrading industry

Smart manufacturing is an important direction for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, which can promote industry upgrading and enhance the competitiveness of the entire industry.

Rapidly responding to customer needs

Smart manufacturing can quickly respond to customer needs, which is of great significance for the product development and production of enterprises.

Challenges faced by Smart Manufacturing

  1. Technology security: Smart manufacturing utilizes a large number of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data, which face technology security issues. Ensuring the security and privacy of data is a priority issue that enterprises must consider.
  2. Accuracy and real-time nature of production data: Smart manufacturing requires a large amount of production data support, and ensuring the accuracy and real-time nature of production data requires professional consultants to carefully evaluate and plan based on the existing machinery in the factory.
  3. Employee technical skills and management level: Smart manufacturing can replace tedious or highly repetitive manufacturing processes, so employees will inevitably need to transform themselves, possess higher-level work skills to implement technology applications and management. However, improving employees’ technical skills and management level requires efforts from both the enterprise and the employees.

The future development directions of smart manufacturing

Industrial IoT

Industrial IoT is one of the important directions of smart manufacturing, which refers to the use of IoT technology to connect various elements of production equipment, products, personnel, etc., to achieve intelligent and automated production processes.

Smart Factory

Smart Factory refers to the use of IoT, artificial intelligence, big data and other technologies to achieve automation and intelligence in the production process, thereby improving production efficiency and product quality, and reducing production costs.

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is another important direction of smart manufacturing, which refers to the digitization of the production process through digital technology, including digital design, digital production, digital logistics, etc., to achieve intelligent and automated production processes.

In short, smart manufacturing is an important direction for the transformation and upgrading of modern manufacturing industry. It combines production equipment, products, personnel, and other elements with the network to achieve the intelligence and automation of the production process, thereby improving production efficiency and product quality, reducing production costs, promoting industrial upgrading, and enhancing the competitiveness of the entire industry. Although smart manufacturing faces challenges such as technology security, the accuracy of production data, and the technical skills of employees, its future development prospects are very broad. We can expect smart manufacturing to bring us more intelligent, efficient, and green production and lifestyle.

The reasons why each company implements MES may vary, but the ultimate goal is always to reduce costs and increase profits. This time, we invited a senior project manager from NTT DATA to share the blind spots that may be encountered when implementing MES. We suggest that companies also review the following four points when implementing MES to avoid blind spots becoming obstacles to implementation and reducing overall effectiveness.

1. Purpose of implementation

When implementing MES, companies should confirm repeatedly whether the purpose of implementation is to comply with the final customer’s audit, to improve internal manufacturing efficiency, or to mass-produce new products. Different purposes should have different aspects to focus on. If the consulting company only provides the same implementation process and method, the client’s implementation purpose may be easily blurred, and the ultimate benefits may not be fully realized.

2. Internal department support

Companies often think that by purchasing a system and leaving the implementation to the software vendor, the system will take root and function well in the factory. However, this is a dangerous idea as the software vendor is an external expert and may not fully understand the needs and problems within the factory as well as the internal employees. Without the full support of manufacturing, production management, equipment, research and development, and quality assurance departments, the implemented system may not truly meet the production needs of the factory. Over time, the system and practices may become disconnected, and personnel may only operate to meet company requirements, losing the real value of the MES system in the factory.

3. Cooperation of on-site personnel

Even with a well-designed MES system, it still relies on the operation and data input of on-site personnel. In the process of implementing MES, a few on-site personnel may be unwilling to learn how to operate the new system and may not correctly input data according to the system’s instructions, merely going through the motions. This may result in “Garbage in, garbage out,” where the system outputs incorrect results due to incorrectly inputted data. This leads to the design of the MES system often outputting production data with a zero production time, such as forgetting to scan the Runcard and only doing it later or performing incorrect operations, such as scanning A instead of B and then requiring information personnel to modify or delete the data later. Although these are the actions of only a few employees, they greatly affect the effectiveness of the MES system implementation from a management perspective, and all of this is considered a waste of cost and losing the initial intention of the system design.

4. Project Quality

How can we achieve a balance between cost, time, and scope without sacrificing project quality? During the implementation process, users often base their requests on their current inherent practices and processes, hoping that the system can also accommodate their specific requirements. However, in project execution planning, time and cost are fixed. If the scope keeps expanding, but the project time does not extend accordingly, the project’s quality may suffer. Alternatively, meeting additional requirements may require increasing costs, but too many requirements can cause project implementation time to be extended beyond the expected timeline, which may not meet the customer’s expectations for the go-live date.
Based on the consultant’s extensive implementation experience, a principle of prioritization should be adopted in evaluating customer requirements. By carefully confirming the needs with the customer and understanding the background of their requirements, and under the consultant’s professional judgment, if the likelihood of the customer’s request occurring is low, such as a situation that rarely happens, it is suggested to handle the request outside the system through manual processing by personnel, which may be more flexible than spending additional customization fees to incorporate it into the system.

The project management triangle is made up of cost, time, and scope.

Do you have problems with the overall production effectiveness not improving even after implementing MES in your factory? You may consider improving the above points, and we welcome you to consult with our professional consultants. We can assist you in optimizing your MES system to maximize its effectiveness and maintain a competitive advantage in the industry.