Consumers are driving demand for new and innovative products. Variety is key as consumers seek more personalized products and services. From food and beverage choices to seasonally evolving clothing and homeware trends – manufacturers are challenged to get new high-quality products through their facility while keeping prices competitive.
Rising demand for personalized products together with a desire to get products to market quickly are driving the trend to small lot production, also known as ‘the lot size of one’. In addition to the constantly changing products that consumers are purchasing, the pandemic has also resulted in a significant change to the way they are shopping.
A recent study by Nielsen showed that e-commerce has been on the rise during the pandemic. Online shopping increased by 53% as more people self-isolated and worked from home. Furthermore, consumers are demanding fast delivery times, requiring manufacturers to have efficient supply chain processes.
Manufacturers need to be agile throughout their entire supply chain, from raw materials to manufacturing, warehousing to distribution and finally to the end customer.
A connected supply chain can help improve performance and productivity. By linking processes via the Internet of Things, organizations can achieve end-to-end supply chain alignment. A first step to achieving an agile, connected supply chain is for organizations to streamline manufacturing and logistics operations.
Aligning manufacturing and logistics
As product variety increases dramatically, concepts like lean manufacturing and inventory stock reduction become increasingly important. By delivering just in time, work in progress materials can be massively reduced so that the only materials on the shop floor are those either currently or very soon in use in production. This requires that material-handling be as efficient as possible to get the right quantities of the right inventory to each production point at the right moment.
For manufacturing companies to streamline manufacturing and logistics operations, it is crucial to optimize both data and material flows between logistics and production. FactoryTalk Warehouse can help. It integrates seamlessly with any Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and offers premier integration with Rockwell Automation MES solutions.
FactoryTalk Warehouse can help you effectively manage your production inventory
FactoryTalk Warehouse can control all warehouse activities required to support production operations, including inbound processing, storage and operation, and outbound processing. Specifically, FactoryTalk Warehouse supports:
- Inbound processing activities: including goods receipt processing, quality inspection, deconsolidation labelling and put-away with location determination based on material and storage conditions
- Storage and operation activities: including stock records, stock adjustment (e.g., based on stock counting), rearrangements of logistic units and sublots, management of the status of batches and sublots, transport orders based on material and storage conditions and tracking the cool chain
- Outbound processing activities: including goods issue processing, picking with location determination, consolidation, packing, wave management and shipping orders
Most manufacturing systems include two touch points between MES and Warehouse Management System (WMS) because MES governs production and WMS controls warehouse inventory and material moves. The first feeds components and other work in progress materials to production lines and the second is at the end of the lines where finished goods need to be moved to the warehouse for shipping.
As the demand for personalized products increases, this results in smaller lot sizes for manufacturers. As such, it is critical that MES and WMS work in close concert around issues like reducing work in progress inventory levels and increasing inventory visibility. Rather than one system passing a set of data or requests to another in batch mode, it is more efficient to synchronize the two.
Agility is key
Being able to move quickly and easily in response to changing customer demand is key to developing a competitive advantage in today’s business environment. Manufacturers often need to modify existing workflows or create new workflows to support new products or new operations. When the solution is not modular, this can be a complex and time-consuming process.
FactoryTalk Warehouse streamlines the process by providing the necessary tools to easily modify or build the warehouse workflows. When users modify or build workflows, they can use a library of standard functions (called widgets) to define workflow sequences. It also guides and helps operators to execute workflows effectively and efficiently and includes HTML5 web clients that support mobile terminals.
Simplifying compliance
Manufacturing compliance is of critical importance to the industry. It helps to ensure operational efficiency and safety while fostering customer confidence and trust. In both regulated and non-regulated industries, implementing a GMP-compliant system can help you to control and record operation execution.
FactoryTalk Warehouse uses e-signatures to control who can execute each critical warehouse operation and transaction logs to record operation execution. This helps you to meet and demonstrate compliance as required, or simply to manage operations more effectively.
Optimize warehouse management
Manufacturers are continually challenged to produce and ship product to customers faster, more cost effectively and with increased quality. By identifying challenges and bottlenecks in your warehouse processes you can optimize warehouse management, functionality and productivity.
The ultimate goal is to establish a smart warehouse with connected technology where goods are received, identified, sorted, organized and moved for shipment automatically.
FactoryTalk Warehouse makes this possible by helping to improve all aspects of managing production inventories including inputs, work in progress products, and mobile equipment, through improved visibility and inventory workflows.
As more organizations see the value in digitizing their warehouse operations, there will continue to be is a key focus on the importance of smart warehouse management systems – helping to deliver your next competitive edge.
