Everyone on the Same Page

The first phase of PiQ development began in a meeting among shop floor employees.  The question was posed:  What is the biggest problem on the shop floor?

The overwhelming answer was “communication.”  I needed them to be more specific, because communication is a broad topic.  The team started firing off examples.

  • I came in for my shift, and I asked what is most important to run.  Joe tells me to focus on Machine #10.  I spend my evening optimizing production on Machine #10, and then the next day Bob tells me that I was supposed to be focused on Machine #8.
  • I ran Machine #22 for my entire shift, then the next day I was admonished for overproducing the order by 20%.  No one told me how many more parts we needed.
  • We missed our shipping date on Part A because no one told me that it was due to ship tomorrow, and I was focused on Part B.
  • We ran out of material for Machine #13 yesterday.  I told Bob that we needed more material, and he didn’t get the message to Jill.

The company managed orders on a white board in the Operations Manager’s office.  Each day, the Operations Manager revised the board with due dates and quantities.  He knew everything that needed to be done, and when it needed to be completed.  No one could fault his organization nor his knowledge.  However, the problem arose in the communication of requirements to the rest of the shop floor.  The grapevine effect was taking its toll.

We’ve all heard of the grapevine.  Most of us think of it as an informal communication network, a “gossip channel.”  But in Production Management, the grapevine has more significance.  To illustrate this phenomena, we did an exercise in a team meeting.  All of the employees were sitting at a large, U-shaped table.  I went to one end of the table and whispered in the first employee’s ear:  “We’re going fishing on Tuesday, pass it on.”

The information went around the table, from one person to the next.  I went to the other end of the line and heard from the last person “The shop will be closed on Wednesday!”

The lesson is that verbal communication becomes distorted in a team environment, because each person hears the information within their own perspective, and communicates it to others from their perspective.

What this team needed was a Production Management System:  Software that centralized the information and made it accessible to everyone.  With a background in ERP systems in Fortune 500 companies, I knew where to start.  I began researching small shop production software.

In short, here is what I found:  My minimum investment was going to be in the $20K – $30K range.  Yes, there were packages that advertised for less than half of those figures, but as an experienced systems implementer, I knew that consultation and customization to make the software fit our environment would be at least the cost of the software itself.  So I developed the application internally.

The first requirement was to assure that the information was presented graphically, so the shop floor employees could understand it easily.  Implementation and training were simple, and the application was quickly embraced.  Within days, the “communication problem” never came up again.  Here is what I observed:

  • No one complained that they didn’t know how to prioritize their work again.
  • Shop floor employees were proactively passing valuable information to management.  Some examples:
    • We’re running low on material for Job A.
    • It’s going to be close to make the order for Job B on the 16th.  I am available to work on Saturday, would you like me to come in?
    • I can finish Job A on Machine 10 tonight, and if we change it over to Job B, we won’t be in a pinch for the next order.
  • Shop floor employees were helping each other.  When one operator knew that his colleague’s job was in a pinch, he helped with the loading process of the constraint machine, cutting loading time in half.
  • Production runs stopped when they were complete.  Everyone understood how many parts we had, and how many we needed.

By giving everyone on the shop floor access to all of the information they needed to do their job, we eliminated communication issues and streamlined our operations.

Today, that package is available to your company, with zero start-up cost and a small monthly fee.  Check out the demo and see how PiQ can improve your operations!

 

Machine Monitoring with PiQ

The PiQ Machine Monitoring System allows you to see the current status of all workstations in the company in real time, from anywhere using a connected device.  The following images provide a glance at the system in operation:

In list view, you can see each machine’s status, indicated by a color code and detailed in the status column.  You can also see how long the machine has been in the current status.  For example, in the above image you can see that machine 13 has been online for 11.5 hours, while machine 23 is setting up for the 594158-B job and Fred has been working on it for 4 hours.

Going a little deeper, you can look at the reporting tab and see the status for each machine for the current day.  In the following example, we’re viewing the report at 11:45 am and the shop floor has been in production since 7:00 am.

Machine 13 has been online since the shop opened, and machine 23 was online for the first 30 minutes, before it was put into setup.

You can also glance back at yesterday’s production:

You can quickly see that machine 13 was running from 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm yesterday, then went into setup and maintenance mode.  It was producing for 32% of the open shop hours.

Machine 23 was in maintenance most of the day yesterday, and went back online at 9:00 pm.

You also have full access to all of the machine monitoring history, in a convenient table that allows you to filter the data in any way you want, and then provides that information to you in a comma delimited file, ready for analysis in any spreadsheet or reporting tool!

The Machine Monitoring System is ready for installation on your shop floor with no equipment needed other than a web-enabled device for viewing and input.  All of the statuses and color codes are established in your setup and customized to your environment.

With PiQ, you get all of this (in addition to the order, shipping, production and material management) with no startup cost and a small monthly fee!  Try it yourself in the demo (login: guest, password: guest) and see how PiQ can put you in touch with your machine status, no matter where you are.

 

The PiQ Dashboard: Part Status Inquiry

As an introduction to one of the core features of PiQ, I’d like to guide you through an everyday scenario:  A customer calls to check on the status of their order.

You’ve received a call from your customer, the purchasing agent at ABC Company, inquiring about their part number w3mm.   They’ve experienced a sudden increase in demand from their customer, and they’re getting low on material.

Before your customer has finished his query, you have the full status displayed on your PiQ dashboard.  (You may click on the image to expand it in another tab.)

Note that for the purposes of this example, today’s date is May 31. The first thing you see is that the June 7 order has already had one shipment against it, perhaps as a result of your customer calling the week before, asking for a partial shipment to replenish their dwindling supply.

You also note that you have 26,000 parts on hand, and that you’re in  good shape to complete the June 7 order on time.

If you’re concerned about the accuracy of the 26K parts you have in stock.  You can quickly glance at the information panel to see when that stock was last verified.  You see that the inventory was audited earlier today.

You confidently communicate to your customer that you are on target to complete their order on time, and that you have some parts you can ship immediately if they are in need.

Next, he asks if you can move up the next order to June 14 to keep them in stock!

You see that the next order date is June 24.  That would require removing 10 days from your lead time to meet his requirements.

You’re easily on pace to meet the June 24 ship date, so let’s take a look at the data to see if June 14 is possible.

You can see that it only requires 6,543 parts per day to make the 24th order date, and you’ve been producing at the rate of 76% utilization and 12,672 parts per day over the last several days.  It’s pretty clear that you can make the 14th ship date, especially if we push that machine utilization rate up a little higher.

Go ahead, tell your customer you can make the order 10 days earlier.  They’ll be delighted, and you will have answered all of their questions without having to call them back, without leaving your desk, and without even leaving the dashboard.

Let’s go to order entry and modify the order date for the second order.  All you need to do is pull up the existing order and click on the date:

And now refresh the dashboard, and you’ll see that the status is updated.

Given our current production rate, we are now in the yellow zone for the second order.  This is manageable, especially because your entire shop floor is immediately up-to-date and can see the customer requirements in real time.

In fact, you may want to bring a little extra attention to the changes to make sure everyone understands their priorities.  Go to the Part Alerts tab, and let’s enter a message for them.

And there it is, in big red letters at the top of the screen!  This is how PiQ puts everyone on the same page, and gives each employee the information they need to meet customer requirements.

Want to give it a try?  Go to the demo and login as username: guest and password: guest to try it yourself!

Machine Monitoring on PiQ

PiQ offers a fully online Machine Monitoring System

We are happy to announce the release of the Machine Monitoring System module of PiQ!  The Machine Monitoring System (aka Workstation Monitoring) is included in the standard PiQ subscription, presenting an excellent opportunity to improve productivity and visibility into your manufacturing processes.

Machine monitoring allows you to see the status of every production center in your facility in real time, from anywhere, with a web-enabled device.  You can see what’s running, what’s not running, and why.  You can also view detailed history of uptime / downtime status for every production center in your facility.

Check out the demo to see how the system works, and use the contact form  or the support forum if you have any questions.  Ready to get started?  Sign up today!

PiQ is Live!

We are proud to announce that PiQ is Live and Online!

PiQ is a platform to manage production in small to medium sized manufacturing companies, and you can put it to work for you today!

You can learn more about PiQ by working with the live Demo.

if you have questions, contact us using the form, or post a question in the Support Forum.

Going Live Soon!

PiQ will be live soon. For the time being, you can try the demo as we continue putting the finishing touches on it. Feel free to add or edit the demo records as you wish. We reset the database nightly, so your changes will only stay in place for the day.

Follow our Guide to add one of your own parts to see how PiQ will help you manage your production!

The Support Forum is online, register there to ask questions about the demo.

Use the Contact Form to be notified when PiQ is ready to build your own system.