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At least once a month I have a customer say something like “That is like paying you to do a quote.” Or, “I am not going to pay you to do a quote.” 

MES solutions are among the toughest Manufacturing IT projects out there.  They touch IT, Operations, Automation and Engineering, Quality, ERP, and most of all PEOPLE!  So, approaching a MES project without a plan, some specifications, a few requirements, or at least something written down, is sure disaster.

Here is my house analogy:

You want a new custom home, or at least you think you are ready to embark on the journey.  You are not sure what it is going to cost, but you think you know what you want.  You show up to talk with the builder with no prints, no specs, knowing nothing about the types of cabinets, fixtures, carpet, or appliances that you want, and you want the builder to tell you how much it is going to cost.  You sit down with the builder and start saying things like “we want 3 bedrooms and 3 full-bathrooms.”  Image the builder’s position….do you want granite counters?  Walk-in showers?  Closets the size of small bedrooms?  How is he supposed to help you if you have not defined your requirements?

In the house analogy, this is where the designer and/or architect come into play.  You could also use a builder that does “Design-Build.”  In either case, you typically define what it is you want so that you can get what you want from the final result.  Also, this allows you to go get “apples-to-apples” quotes from multiple builders.

As for MES, most manufacturers don’t know where to start in defining their MES requirements.  And, many vendors are eager to get started on something, so they will start building something for the manufacturer without designing the entire solution.  In our house analogy, this is what I call the Tree House analogy.  If you don’t plan it out up front, your house will start looking like a tree house all thrown together.

Final Suggestions:

• Define your MES Requirements up front - if you don’t know how to do this, call me.
• With your definition in hand, seek input from a few builders.
• Start Small, but with a final design in mind.

We are often asked to help justify Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) solutions in order to get capital approval to move forward.  This is a monumental task because MES systems are very difficult to justify on hard savings.

One of the reasons MES solutions are hard to justify is they help you with many “soft” improvements.  Deming said “You cannot improve what you cannot see.”  MES solutions help you see what you need to improve, and help you systematize your improvements.  What is that worth?

Here are some practical items you can focus on for your justification:

1. What manual data collection can be eliminated?  What does that cost in real labor?  Not only in the people collecting the data, but those the scrub it, chart it, report it, and debate its accuracy. (Reduces Cost)

2. What “oops” problems could be eliminated with more synergy in the manufacturing process?  Wrong labels on parts or containers, shipping product that had questionable parts/processes, quality spills, adding value to known bad product? (Reduces Cost)

3.  Could you increase velocity or agility if you could manage complexity and proliferation of your products?  Would you still have to hire extra expediters?  Would you have to build the new line?  Would you be able to take on more work? (Increases Revenue)

4.  Could you provide better visibility into your operations for your customers?  What would better customer service do for your relationship with your existing customers?  Would they give you more work? (Increases Revenue)

5.  Have you had a quality spill you can quantify?  What did it cost?  What if you could eliminate or reduce the cost of the next one? (Reduces Cost)

As I write this, I think this post could be turned into a multi-part series…  Feel free to contact me if you need more ideas for justification.

We have a term for people that try to do something they are not quite equipped to do - “Technically Dangerous” or TDs for short.  As in “they are a little technically dangerous” or “they are TD.”  We often run into these interesting types who are trying to write software, program automation, or otherwise “tinker” with manufacturing systems because, well they can….tinker that is.

So why are there Technically Dangerous people out there putting solutions in place to run our factories?  You want some examples?  I though I would describe these solutions with how they were presented to me.  This is what I hear:

“Don’t minimize that, it will crash, and we will have to restart it.”
“Once a day we have to get everyone out of the system and rebuild the database”
“We have to reboot our MES system twice a week for preventative maintenance, otherwise the memory leaks will crash the system”
“We want to push compressed data from our data historian out to an Oracle database [uncompressed] so our IT guys can get it.”

My passion is to help the “technically dangerous” people of the world do a better job, as well as protect manufacturers from making mistakes that cost a lot of time and money.

I gave myself the title on the ManufIT blog of Chief Translator of Opportunities.  I really hope I can be a benefit to manufacturing leaders that want to really use IT solutions to better their operations and quality.

The next time you suspect that you are inheriting or witnessing the installation of a solution that could be labeled as “technically dangerous” drop me a line and let me review it with you.  It would be my pleasure.  Contact me here.

I saw this video back when you had to email it around.  Thanks to the wonderful world of search with YouTube, I found it again.  Enjoy!