Continuous Improvement?
for Efficiency
builds business.
Continuous Innovation
Continuous Improvement
Digitised
What is Continuous Improvement?
Continuous improvement is the ongoing effort of improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility of processes with which an organisation achieves Customer Satisfaction and business goals with consistent quality products, services and delivery.
Introduction to FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement (CI) Digital Platform
Today, the pace of change can make a business obsolete overnight. If you do not have a continuous improvement strategy and a system to execute it effectively and efficiently, your future is at risk.
At FactoryWorxTM we see Continuous Improvement as a meta-process that underpins all management systems, from business strategy, business and brand goals, processes, to human interactions, including customers, employees, and suppliers. Essentially, every activity and aspect of business is potentially subject to continuous improvement.
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement solution is designed to make it simple, intuitive and easy to adopt and democratize CI in your organisation using the very technology that already transforms manufacturing operations into Industry 4.0 leaders.
Our software, together with the exceptional support from Experts in our Partner ecosystem will ensure that Continuous Improvement is ingrained in your business strategy, in people’s behaviours and ultimately, thinking. This enables the organization to readily adapt to external factors and maintain customers’ satisfaction. Without CI working for you, your business can easily get marginalized and fail altogether.
Yep, we automate it.
FactoryWorxTM
MES ENQUIRY
Starting with automation or looking for a holistic MES Solution? Start Here.
Why Manufacturing Companies Choose FactoryWorxTM CI
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement (CI) is the proven path to Manufacturing Excellence. It enables CI through automation of the best tools, methodologies and practices, integrating them with MES software and ERP systems to make CI work for the entire business.
Digitising your continuous improvement allows you to embed the best practices of the operating system in every area of the business, using proven CI methods and tools, including IWS, TPS, Lean, WCM and more.
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement digitises the CI processes and culture, seamlessly connecting the top floor with the factory floor, building the culture of quality and continuous innovation that empowers people to make the right decisions.
Explore Key Features of FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement Platform
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement Platform supports the critical aspects of Industry 4.0 processes and the philosophy of Lean Manufacturing Excellence. It incorporates all currently used and emerging Continuous Improvement process tools, incorporating Lean and Six Sigma standard templates and structures to enable Lean Manufacturing, are included as standard.
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement Platform provides an automated environment that facilitates business and manufacturing excellence through continuous improvement. Our specialist program, Excelerate, provides a shortcut to digital Continuous Improvement transformation. It involves business improvement training, team collaboration, project roadmap, real-time production reporting and visibility, predictive analytics, data collection, project execution and collaboration tools.
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement solution impacts your Manufacturing Operations in three areas, Projects, Digital Workflow Management and Team Management. Leveraging just three CI Modules, this game-changing solution will enable you to build your manufacturing excellence.
The FactoryWorxTM Projects module is designed on the principles of the DMAIC Lean Six Sigma model. It automates standard features and tools of Continuous Improvement processes, enabling your team to effectively manage and track every project through the use of standard workflows and templates. FactoryWorxTM Projects module is extremely easy for people to use, monitor and share project information, effectively eliminating have been the two biggest challenges for Project Management efficiency: organising meetings and communication.
FactoryWorxTM Digital Work Instructions standardises your Work Procedures through digitised Work Instructions and Documentation. This important module utilizes instantaneous digital communications and is the perfect method to connect and engage with every level of your organisation. Knowledge is empowering, and communication of it is essential for continuous improvement. To achieve a continuous improvement culture, recall that Deming stated; “Eliminate slogans, exhortations, or quotas for workers, but rather make speed and efficiency institutional”.
- Standardise communication of continuous improvement process
- Involve employees in driving quality and continuous improvement
The FactoryWorxTM Digital Work Instructions module involves your employees through direct communication. In a CI culture, everyone in your organisation needs to understand how they will be held to a higher standard. Your corporate vision is still needed, but employees learn culture and behaviour on-the-job, by looking to those that lead by example and are more likely to engage in a culture they help create.
FactoryWorxTM Team Collaboration, functionality is a critical aspect of digital transformation and paves the path to Industry 4.0. It saves people’s time on mundane tasks, while promoting strategically focused autonomous behaviours that create new business value.
Together with Project and Digital Work Instructions FactoryWorxTM Team Collaboration enables manufacturing companies to embed the Total Quality Management (TQM) and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) approaches and eliminate the two biggest operational challenges: waste and downtime.
Benefits:
- Improved business results with stronger collaboration
- Improved efficiency through automating information sharing
- Stronger focus on Innovation through better allocation of time and access to information.
How FactoryWorx Delivers the Full Benefits of Continuous Improvement
An effective Continuous Improvement strategy will lead to improved performance in every aspect of your manufacturing business. With relentless competition from all corners of the global economy, adopting the three major CI principles will dramatically affect your bottom line.
- Standardise Processes for Efficiency
- Improve Quality and Reduce Costs
- Create Culture of Continuous Improvement
Adopting the three CI principles enables your organisation to fully leverage the benefits of CI:
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement and Digital Transformation
Digital transformation automates traditional workflow management tools. This is a natural aspect of Continuous Improvement and one that is often taken for granted. Yet, Continuous Improvement processes can accelerate the all-important digitisation in manufacturing, especially in relation to efficiency and affordability of delivering high quality products.
The rate of digital transformation is rapidly accelerating. Combined with major advances being made around artificial intelligence and machine learning, many organizations are beginning to look to process automation to optimization their workflows.
FactoryWorx™ Continuous Improvement platform offers workflow automation as an opportunity for organisations to develop a significant competitive advantage and to be at the forefront of process optimization.
Workflow automation is gaining traction and prevalence with industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, finance and retail, allowing the replacement of manual processes with paperless, digital tools, typically managed by a centralized workflow platform.
Traditional workflow management tools such as whiteboards, spreadsheets and post-it notes have dominated in most organizations, relying largely on human memory and decision-making and are poor tools for collaboration or providing visibility to decision-makers.
FactoryWorx™ recommends deploying workflow automation for repetitive tasks such as assembly work, sensor-based tracking, document management and back-office IT processes.
FactoryWorxTM Gives You All Best Practice CI Tools - Fully Digitized
Today, there are dozens of CI tools and methods. Here are the foundational elements of CI which can be automated and integrated with production using the FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement platform.
The FactoryWorxTM A3 Report
The A3 report condenses project information onto a single page in an easy-to-read, graphical format. It provides sections for describing background information, current conditions, root cause analysis, target conditions, implementation plan, and follow-up.
- Fishbone Diagram: Helps focus on common process issues or human error by shifting attention from symptoms to causes of defects.
- The 5 Whys: An iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a problem, to determine the root cause by repeating the question "Why?" up to five times, where each answer forms the basis of the next question.
Your Favourite Lean Tools in the FactoryWorxTM Toolbox – Made Easy
Lean is the systematic, step-by-step approach to reduce or eliminate wasteful activities that don't add value to processes. There are five key principles: Define Value, Map the Value Stream, Create Flow, Establish Pull, and Seek Continuous Improvement.
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement platform digitizes these methodologies and provides planned, structured and automated access for employees to utilize these tools.
Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.
Go & See: The aim is to go to the actual place of work, observe the process in real-time, then record the observations, thereby keeping leaders and front-line workers on the same page.
An iterative four-step management method (Plan/Do /Check /Act-Adjust) used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products.
Muda, Mura, Muri: Identifies inefficient processes that are a hindrance to customer value generation.
- Muda: Any activity that does not add value to the product or service for the customer. There are eight types of waste that affect customer value; Overproduction, Inventory, Waiting, Motion, Transportation, Rework, Overprocessing and Under-utilization of Skills.
- Mura: Inconsistencies in business operations leading to fluctuations in production and sub-optimal utilization of resources; Uneven Workloads, Inventory Accumulation and Waiting.
- Muri:When processes are not scheduled to optimize resources, there is too much stress and strain on people and machines. Office Overtime, Machinery Over-Utilization and Downtime.
The Six Sigma strategy has its origins in the electronics company Motorola. It was coined in 1986 as a methodology to reduce defects.
It is a powerful tool. Over the last few decades, companies all over the world have saved countless millions by incorporating Lean and Six Sigma strategies into their processes.
It has a long record of being applied successfully across many industries. Information technology, telecommunications, sales, healthcare, finance, and even the military have used Lean Six Sigma to transform processes with business process management ideas – often proving the key the key to staying ahead in today’s busy marketplace.
Lean Six Sigma is the combination of these two different concepts to form a powerful tool to improve business processes.
Just-in-Time is a production “pull” system approach to meet customer demands.
- Standardized Work; One of the key components of a Just-in-Time production system. that refers to the systematic determination and documentation of work element sequence and process for each operation, to clearly communicate to the operator exactly how the job should be performed.
- Tact Time: The rate at which the longest process must not exceed the customer demand. It is an essential tool for creating individual processes by staggering each sequential process from the longest to the shortest time to create a pull system.
- Cellular Manufacturing: A lean manufacturing approach for process improvement. It is defined by the core characteristics of grouped components and manufacturing cells. families of parts are created in a cell of machines. A cell is an area of production that is clearly defined and separated from other manufacturing cells – with each cell having ultimate responsibility for the family of parts and components. Think of cells like mini production facilities within a larger production facility.
- One Piece Flow or Continuous Flow: A production method used instead of traditional mass production, where materials move through the manufacturing process in batches, which can be highly inefficient.
- Jidoka (Autonomation):Also known as intelligent or smart automation, that stops the assembly or production line if a defect occurs.
- Kanbanpull system is a signal system to manage inventory levels.
- SMED(Single Minute Exchange of Dies): Reduction of production equipment changeover time.
- Heijunka: Production line balancing by evenly distributing the line load by product type.
A mistake-proofing device used to avoid errors in assembly or alert operators of defects. Also known as error-proofing, poka-yoke is a method for taking steps to mistake-proof a process. It is a foundational tool of both Lean, which targets waste, and Six Sigma, which focuses on defects, with the goal of eliminating every mistake by creating systems that either prevent or immediately detect them.
Kaizen is a continuous improvement approach focusing on small improvements. It involves the commitment of lower-level people in the organization towards process improvements, facilitated by subordinates and supported by management.
FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement Facilitates Manufacturing Strategy Management
Continuous Improvement has long been recognised as an essential strategy in manufacturing. With the goal to produce competitive and profitable products, manufacturing is always looking for new ways to improve efficiency and consistency of quality and supply.
FactoryWorx™ Continuous Improvement combines advanced, IIoT powered technology, combined with our deep understanding of the manufacturing industry, its issues, and challenges, to make Continuous Improvement an integral part of both strategy and operations.
Simply, we digitize the CI processes for you, and help you connect the dots through integrations and through exceptional expert support of FactoryWorx Partner ecosystem.
SEE THIS SOLUTION IN ACTION!
Want to see how FactoryWorx™ Continuous Improvement all works and what it can do for your company?
Schedule a tailored DEMO with our Expert.
Deploy FactoryWorxTM Continuous Improvement at Your Pace
Remember, deploying FactoryWorx out-of-the-box systems is a simple, fast and non-disruptive.
Just plug-and-play!
The best aspect of this exceptional manufacturing solution is its flexibility. While some companies are ready to go full throttle, adopting FactoryWorx™ Continuous Improvement one functionality at a time, can be a very viable option. Each of these functionalities is a vital step in bringing new efficiencies where they are most needed and can deliver visible results quickly.
If you choose to get a DEMO to see FactoryWorx™ Continuous Improvement in action, our expert will show you the best way to address your most challenging or annoying manufacturing issues.
WHAT IS YOUR MANUFACTURING CHALLENGE?
FactoryWorxTM MES Has the Solution
Fully optimised production planning, visibility, control.
Measure and gain instant real-time insight into important data.
Automated, instantly measurable quality across a matrix of factors.
Instant visibility of component and product status, quantity and location.
Seamlessly integrates with major ERP and known business systems.
Industry 4.0 enabled, real time production environment visibility.
Control product progress/cost from components to despatch.
Faster, always accurate and reliable digital factory operations.
Lean starts with no down-time preventative maintenance.
Just plug in and action insights to reduce cost and your footprint.
Optimise yield on equipment and stock for maximum
Empower people to see the bigger picture, their progress and support.
FREE TRIAL. TRY BEFORE YOU BUY.
Test Our Key MES Modules Live in Your Factory
Adopting an advanced MES solution, whether as a single function or entire Industry 4.0 transformation, is a commitment. The difference with FactoryWorx is that our plug and play solutions minimise the usual disruptions, without adding massive workloads and learning curve.
- Energy Management
- Production Planning
- OEE Reporting
- Manufacturing Dashboard
REQUEST A DEMO
Want to see how it all works and what it can do for your company?
Book a DEMO with our Expert.