It’s Not Just Data Trapped in Your Machines

How to extract a stronger bottom line from your shop floor by improving visibility

Visibility. For far too many of today’s discrete manufacturers, “visibility” is a loose process where machine operators and supervisors sift through reports, observation, and even guesswork to figure out what is going wrong on the shop floor.

It is an imperfect process, to say the least, that requires operators and production staff to play detective, shuffling paperwork in a scene reminiscent of old cop movies.

But your operators and production staff shouldn’t have to play detective. Leaving data trapped in your machines and your ERP simply will not cut it in today’s manufacturing sector—because the insight trapped in your machines and systems is more valuable than ever.

Increasing visibility on your shop floor allows discrete manufacturers to turn data into action. Improved visibility also:

• Provides insight that allows your team to make better decisions
• Aligns the reality of your shop floor with the strategies developed by management
• Increases operator engagement
• Helps your team focus on areas that truly need time and attention
• Supports submitting accurate bids and estimates on new jobs
• Empowers operators to meet and exceed the expectations of management (and their own)

Those are just a few of the many reasons visibility is so important.

More than anything, improved visibility allows you to access the most valuable thing trapped in your machines and your ERP. And it isn’t data.

Trapped within a shop floor that lacks visibility is required to keep your doors open and give your team—from operators to management—a job to come to every day: cold, hard cash.

Accessing real-time comparisons of current production versus forecasts and being able to bid jobs accurately leads to a more profitable plant. Without visibility, your shop floor is flying blind. That is incredibly dangerous.

When flying blind, the only thing that prevents a pilot from ending up in a smoking pile of rubble is pure luck—and relying on luck is never a good strategy. Unfortunately, too many discrete manufacturers are guilty of an approach to data that amounts to climbing into a cockpit, closing their eyes, and hoping their lucky underwear is really, really lucky.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Discrete manufacturers do not have to rely on lucky underwear.

Supervisors and operators can take their blindfolds off. They can use data to drive action, escalation, change existing processes, and ultimately improve their results. They can gain instant feedback that helps place data in context—and when data gains context, it can become action. And action leads to a stronger bottom-line.

Alora by M1 delivers accurate, real-time data that helps supervisors and operators transform shop floors, improve efficiency, increase utilization, and create a culture of accountability across your plant. How?

Alora by M1:

• Includes intuitive apps that make operator workflows easier and drive increased engagement and ownership at each machine
• Delivers advanced analytics that provide a roadmap for continuous improvement
• Works across a breadth of brands and ages of machinery
• Collates centralized data that enables your shop to work smarter and not harder
• Allows operators to “manage up” and resolve problems they are closest to and deal with daily
• Features at-a-glance dashboards that prevent your team from drowning in reports, giving managers more hands-on floor time to solve problems that require their expertise and strategic insight

For today’s discrete manufacturers, visibility is the difference-maker.

Accessing the data tucked away in your machine is the fastest, easiest, and most effective way to transform your shop floor—and it pays for itself. Improving throughput by just 15 percent can deliver a return-on-investment of $20,000 per machine per year.

Discrete manufacturers face a more competitive environment than ever before. Surviving and thriving will depend on your plant and your team adapting and evolving. Your company can take the first step toward making that evolution a reality by unlocking the data, insight, and cold hard cash currently trapped in the machines and systems on your shop floor. All you need is the right technology.

And a little more visibility.