Factory execution system enables process standardisation & knowledge sharing

By standardising the methods for collecting, managing and sharing production performance data that vary by factory, this product enables comparisons of production performance between facilities, paving the way for production improvements through the sharing of know-how and kaizen (改善, Japanese for ‘change for better’) activities. In addition, by linking the head office with each production facility, head office gains a timely grasp of inventory information and the status of production progress at each factory.

This enables faster decision-making, and customers can quickly and optimally adjust their production organisation in accordance with market needs. With this product, Fujitsu helps the front lines of manufacturing to improve product quality, efficiency, and speed, as well as reduce costs, all on a global basis.

Today, customers in the manufacturing industry are accelerating the expansion of their businesses around the world, and there is an even greater need than before to raise quality, reduce costs, and shorten delivery times. While individual factories may undertake their own measures to continuously propose improvements and raise productivity, there are many cases in which this kind of performance information cannot be shared in a standardised format among different production facilities.

Based on the know-how it has accumulated over 1,600 deployments of its MES Package Series, Fujitsu has developed this product, adding features to enable information from each production facility to be shared globally, to help customers enhance their global manufacturing operations.

Production results are standardised for each manufacturing method, including cellular manufacturing, single-piece flow, and production lines. This makes information from each site and factory uniform, and sharing of this information enables comparisons with other production facilities, facilitating the spread of know-how and each factory's efforts at improvement, resulting in overall productivity gains.

By flexibly linking front-line information, such as each factory's productivity and the production progress of each line, to ERP and other systems in the head office, the product enables staff at each level of the organisation, including executives, managers, and line workers, to see the information they need. That enables problems to be broken down to their fundamentals, and that information to be used to order specific improvements. It also gives executives the ability to immediately control front-line operations in response to sudden market changes.

The product systematises just-in-time deliveries, in which orders to replenish the supply of parts to the line are issued automatically in the amount needed and at the optimal time. This increases the efficiency of replenishing parts matched to the processing stage of the line. It also brings efficiency to the work of creating inventory and delivery orders, and optimises inventories.

Detailed management of quality information on the factory floor makes it possible to identify parts or materials that are the causes of product problems. It also identifies the products affected by defective parts or materials, resulting in two-way traceability. For companies, this both reduces their workload for quality management and enables quick response by isolating problems.

GLOVIA ENTERPRISE MES is currently available for sale.