Intelligence in Manufacturing

Why Do We Still Use Spreadsheets?

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:18:00 +0000

Sometimes I find some unfinished article while cleaning up – something I should obviously do more regularly! So here is one of these excerpts that I found particularly relevant as I am discussing the topic of “Manufacturing Intelligence” with a number of companies.

Manufacturing systems software vendors continuously tell us that you cannot have visibility into your operations without a software application, which I have to agree is generally true. This forces us to sift through the onslaught of offerings full of buzz words such as “metrics”, “digital dashboards”, and “business intelligence platforms”. Yet, it is remarkable that one of the most commonly used tools to capture and manage information from the shop floor is The Spreadsheet - typically Microsoft’s Excel. In some cases, even with a major ERP system investment, the Spreadsheet is still the primary source of timely data collection about the manufacturing operations. In other cases, expensive solutions are put in place to capture and collect data from automation equipment but fail to provide the information in a useable context and once again users resort to the spreadsheet.

Why is it then that manufacturing organizations resort to solutions that are based on a spreadsheet? It is typically not because of lack of understanding about information systems or the skills required to use them. It is because a spreadsheet provides the flexibility and ability to manage and present shop floor information in the most useable and advantageous manner. (By the way the common term for “manage and use” is “information consumption”.) Remember that a manufacturing manager’s main focus is productivity and quality. They use this information to obtain metrics about the value stream that they are trying to manage because they need to know how they are performing in real time. This need is similar to that of a sport’s team, where you know where you stand at every second of the game. You don’t have to wait until tomorrow morning’s newspaper to know who won the game. Running a manufacturing operation without real time metrics is like bowling without being able to see the pins. You can see some of the action, you know that something happened, but you don’t know what the result was.

Of course in recent years, manufacturers have gained some visibility with the increased application of technology, but they are still far from what is possible. I also believe that most of the vendors are clearly aware of the needs and I hope that they we will soon start to see Manufacturing Intelligence applications with the flexibility and convenience that we really need.

A Foundation For Quality (and performance...)

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:02:00 +0000

Next week is ISPE’s annual meeting in Texas and once again I am participating in an interesting session titled “Operational Excellence - A Foundation for Quality”. We held a similar session last year and it was a great success with more than 90 people participating. The topic that I am covering this year is about the current capabilities of automation technology andinformation systems that provide a vital ingredient in enabling operational excellence. I will be joined by speakers from Pfizer, Celgene, Amway and of course NNE Pharmaplan.

My co-presenters will share experiences about OperationalExcellence, Quality by Design (QbD), and Process Understanding. All-in-all an interesting combination of topics that may initially seem loosely related but they are in fact deeply related. They stem from the some old notion that manufacturing performance is a holistic concept. I have mentioned in a previous post that we are “re-inventing the CIM wheel” but at the same time we are also looking at it in a new perspective with much more modern and usable technologies. I strongly believe that before we venture with new ideas we have to look and learn from the past, it is very likely that somebody has had a similar problem and may even have a solution. So CIM, PAT, QbD, DFM it really is all related, related to trying to excel at we do and work more synergistically to accomplish our manufacturing goals.

Metrics & Performance Management - Again

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:43:00 +0000

Not that again! Well it still is a very interesting topic an one that I encounter every time I talk to companies in the life science industries. It seems that there is an increased understanding across all walks of life in the manufacturing organizations that one of the main advantages of system is the ability to gain a better understanding of both process and operations. I hear people asking for metrics, and in the context of gauging their performance. I spend a lot of time trying to understand this trend, and I have no conclusion yet. It may be the economic climate, maturaity of the technology, or maybe the momuntum that operational excellence intiatives have gained?

The membership of the ogranziations that I work with such as MESA and ISPE have also shown great interest in this topic and I am participating in a few events that highlight them. On October 27th we have a MESA webcast about "Harnessing the Power of Metrics" and on November 7th we are organizing a special session at the ISPE annual meeting about "Operational Excellence - A Foundation for Quality". The session will be hosted by NNE Pharmaplan and will include speakers from Amway, Celgene and Pfizer. I hope to have some great discussions, feel free to track me down if you are in attendance.

A Picture of MBO Misuse

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:50:00 +0000

I was reading “Organizational Sabotage - The Malpractice of Management By Objective” on the Deming Files and I am once again I am dumbfounded by how it is continuously being practiced or misused. It is a topic that I have written about before on the L2L blog and here. Although I liked the article it seemed lacking some real world examples. Needless to say I have experienced these continuously over my career and sometimes when reading these types of articles I just feel like shouting the proverbial “Hello”!

Anyways since I prefer visual interpretation I thought about trying to come up with a simple graphic to convey Deming’s and Drucker’s real message about MBO. I also thought I would add some description in the form of pairs of antonyms to emphasize the visual. Here is what I came up with:

Short-term / Long-Term

Disarrayed / Aligned

Untidy / Tidy

Conflicting / Collaborative

Kind of simplistic and vague – I know, yet open to interpretation? The notion is that if you set a short term goal it drives a specific behavior that is not always what you want, and probably not if it is a business strategy. Drucker wrote that “Objectives are the fundamental strategy of a business. Objectives must be derived from what our business is, what it will be, and what it should be.” Clearly he meant long-term objectives?

I was with my kids at the beach the other way and they were learning to use a stand up paddle board. The 18 year old instructor gave them a simple tip. Always look at the horizon when paddling it helps keep your balance, look down at your feet and you will fall.

Manufacturing Systems Solution – more than MES

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:19:00 +0000

Although I have been silent on the blog for a while I have been pretty busy working with customers and a few other things. I have been fortunate to have an article published in ISPE's Pharmaceutical Engineering titled “Manufacturing Systems Solution – more than MES” that I wanted to share (you can download it here). The article take a historical perspective at finding the right Manufacturing Systems solution, starting with the CIM wheel and on to current best practices such as GAMP and ISA-95. The article is a compilation of lessons learned and experiences from industry about Manufacturing Systems solutions and why these solutions are more than an MES. It highlights what works and what does not when considering justification, selection and design of a Manufacturing System solution with an MES at the core.

Considering the history behind Manufacturing Systems’ designs over the last three decades there should be ample fundament to design such a system. Yet the MES Domain is inherently complex and this complexity means that providing a clear and concise return on investment is challenging, given that MES typically involves a substantial capital investment. The result of this is that MES implementations are commonly surrounded with uncertainty and implementation experiences that typically are described as “painful”.

I will be co-presenting the approach described in the article at the MESA NA Conference with Roland Esquivel and Steve Soscia from Amway. We have been using this approach to craft Amway’s global Manufacturing Systems program, which has been a very interesting assignment.

No computers and a Boston accent - The Company Men

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Mon, 16 May 2011 21:42:00 +0000

Sitting on a plane the other day I was watching "The Company Men", seems that is the only time I get to see movies. The movie tells a story about some guys who are forced to leave their jobs because of downsizing of a manufacturing company. The company, which is in the ship building industry, is dealing with falling stock prices as a result of the recent recession. It features Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck, and Kevin Costner in best Hollywood style as some very successful executives that get laid-off. Well Kevin really plays an independent construction guy with a strong Boston accent – go figure, and Aflleck is the sales guy. I didn’t find that it played into their strong suites – but I am a lousy film critic.

I am sure that the choice of manufacturing industry is Hollywood’s attempt at zapping the national sympathy nerve, as if the recession isn’t close enough? Although the movie I think was a bit shallow I could not help relating to it. Obviously this topic is close to everybody’s hart after the last few years. It seems that we all know somebody who has lost a job. I was living in Indiana at the time and boy do I have stories…

Now it seems that the economy is coming back and the jobs are as well. I obviously am looking at it from my little corner of the world working with the life science industries and this may skew my perception. I still would argue that there are small noticeable things that are happening for the good. For example I just read an article about the resurgence of the tech-job market. So is it finally over – I hope so?

I am observing many companies embarking on yet another round of “let’s get our manufacturing systems in shape”. This is great news especially if it also involves a real investment of both time and money. This trend is not new and has had numerous incarnations over the last 3 decades dating all the whay back to the CIM days of the 80s. However what I am noticing this time around is that we are bit more pragmatic. The compliance driver is omnipresent – no need to dwell there, but I also see some business drivers that relate to understanding the manufacturing process and supporting the value stream. What I mean is that the focus is much broader and holistic. Rather than try and find one visible driver to pin the Manufacturing System initiative there is a general understanding of the need for a solution, with the benefits coming from better operations and increased quality. In addition the need to have fundamental information for better decision making and performance management is voiced as a high priority and treated as an afterthought. This is all excellent news; let’s just hope that my observations are right and that we keep the momentum.

Like in the movie the recession seemed that have shaken up our world, grounding us in such a way that we are better poised to find value and understand what it means. Anyways back to the move - one thing that I noticed is that it tried to convey current time in a setting that was old. There were no cell phones and nobody had a computer on his desk. I am still trying to figure out what was the purpose. Like the proverb, and this is a crude translation: “There is nothing that is bad enough, that it is not good for something” (seems to be German). I still don’t understand why there were no computers in that movie tough, and why Boston?

Applying "Monkeynomics" To Manufacturing Solutions

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:51:00 +0000

Once again I am involved with a company that is being steered by the “ERP is all you need” approach. I thought that by now we have come to peace with the fact that different systems provide solution to different problems. That ERP has found its place and made peace with MES and other shop floor systems. Maybe it is just human nature and we cannot stop ourselves from making the same mistakes over again. I was just watching one of the TED talks about "Monkeynomics" (see embedded video below). It seems that we as humans have something called “Loss Aversion”, i.e. we will take risks in order to avoid loss rather than play it safe. This is an interesting observation that in retrospect explains a few of the odd behaviors that I have seen from companies in the past.

Another phenomenon that I find intriguing is the flawed notion that general economic methods are universally applicable. In other words the perception from people with business (or more precisely financial) background that it applies in all domains and all situations, specifically when applied to Manufacturing Systems solution. This means that everything that is in the past is money already spent and that we have to consider future state with no regard to what we currently have. Never mind the sweat and tears that where shed in putting a solution in, the extra hours, the training, etc. The current solution may not be perfect (but who or what is?) but it works, people are trained, they are using it, the company knows how to maintain it, in fact it adds value! Yet, from a business perspective, which I equate to “the accounting or CFOs perspective”, we should disregard all of this; it is all water under the bridge. Just imaging the disruptions that will occur when the solution is gutted and a new one put in place, time, money, sweat, and tears – I just do not get it? We are slaves to this economic theory, investment planning only looks to the future and all that we have done in the past is irrelevant – I guess I will go out and get my memory erased - problem solved.

The Difference Between Accountants and Production Managers

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:43:00 +0000

This is an excerpt from a white paper that I authored a while back. I was helping a company with selecting an MES where ERP (SAP in this case, before SAP ME) was included in the mix as if it would be able to provide MES functionality with no constraints. It prompted me to write about the differences between MES and ERP.

ERP systems are designed to be very effective accounting systems. MES systems are designed to aid in shop floor management. It is naive and risky to assume that one of these systems can be extended to effectively do the other’s job. Similarly, one would not assign an accountant to be a production manager, or vice versa. Each might be an expert in his own field, yet it takes a completely different set of skills, expertise and knowledge to effectively tackle each task.

Industry experience and best practices, as well as academic literature, strongly suggest integration of ERP and MES rather than the extension of either. The best approach is to implement a best-of-breed MES that is easily integrated into ERP. The benefits that can be gained are immense. They are in fact what will truly and finally allow organizations to realize some return on the large ERP investment.

I wrote this back in 2004 and the reason I came back to it now, since a customer that I am currently helping is doing it again. Well it seem that history repeats itself, and I can only say here we go again....

Finally a clear explanation of what MES is!

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:12:00 +0000

I was browsing the blogshpere and came across this post explaining what MES is in real world terms. Since Gartner has now coined MES as MOM the author of this blog uses an analogy with mom (as in mother) to explain what MES is. I think this is a great way to explain the very complicated domain in simple terms. This is also what I tried to do in the my previous "What is it that I do" post.

Here is an excerpt:

An MES system is:

Software (mom’s brain)

That connects to multiple plant and business systems (spouse, children, school, work, home)

Collects relevant data (children’s and spouse’s schedules; play dates; doctor’s appointments; clothing and shoe sizes of every family member; contents of pantry and refrigerator; supplies needed for school/daycare; immunizations required; daily intake of children’s fruits and vegetables; recommendations on pediatric dentists; educating oneself about any number of topics, not to exclude best techniques for discipline, potty training and how to get your child to broccoli; birthdays; anniversaries; dates of holiday family gatherings on both sides; … uh, not to mention everything required for any work that’s outside the home)

And presents it as easy-to-understand, real-time intelligence (may exist in rudimentary lists, a calendar, or electronic planner, but probably all three; also, constant verbal communication to tell spouse and children everything that needs to be done)

For productivity analysis, data mining, querying and reporting (to coordinate activities and process information in the most succinct and orderly way possible so mom, spouse and children can make the best decisions and achieve optimum life satisfaction and achievement)

The blog is named "On the Night You were Born" and I could not find the name of the blog's owner, but I have to extend out thanks from the MES/MOM community. All that remains is counter with a DAD system explanation.

Once again ROI from MES - Not Really!

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 01:28:00 +0000

So much has bee written and discussed about ROI for MES. I got involved in the latest discussion on a LinkedIn group. I guess that this question is one of the great phenomena of the MES domain. Unlike other types of systems (ERP, QMS, PLM, etc.) the returns and direct benefits hardly provide enough to justify the investment. To complicate matters even more the actual reasons for employing MES differ not only by industry but also by customer. Para-phrasing Paul Boris from the LinkedIn discussion “it is like explaining to your kids why they should eat their veggies”.

It is no wonder that MES solutions are typically the last ones to be implemented in the typical manufacturing solution landscape. It is simply too hard to provide a clear and concise return or benefit from an MES alone or at least to justify the investment – and MESs do not come cheap. On the other hand it is obviously much easier when there is a specific and typically catastrophic event that needs to be remedied, such as a recall, 483 (FDA warning letter), regulatory compliance, detrimental quality issues, etc.

MES need to be thought of as enablers for operational excellence where the ROI and benefit come from the “Whole” solution and not the system. For example more efficient process, better quality, effective material management, etc. The ROI and/or benefits have to then be attributed to The Whole Solution – focus on the solution rather than the System (i.e. MES).

The power of collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:36:00 +0000

Last week I participated in a conceptual design process for a facility and process revamp with one of our customers. This is the first time in quite a few years where I worked in multi-disciplinary team that was tasked with coming up with options and solutions for a new process line. Obviously my responsibilities where around the Manufacturing Systems – nothing new here.

It was one of those experiences where I knew how effective such a collaborative process is, yet a verbal explanation does not do it justice. Kind of like trying to teach somebody how to ride a bicycle by reading a book. Quite simple you would think -just peddle and hold your balance – right?

So I now once again have renewed appreciation not only for the other engineering disciplines and level of competency required but also for the importance of collaboration in engineering projects. It is refreshing to once in a while get back to basics, hopefully I will get a few more chances to do that.

The 4 Misunderstanding About Manufacturing Systems Implementations

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:33:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I attended the ISPE annual meeting in Orlando. My company was hosting a session about technology and operational excellence that was pretty well attended. I take that as a sign of general interest in the topic. I believe that the interest was on the pure operational excellent side, yet the session tried to highlight the synergies that exist between manufacturing systems and operational excellence.

My colleague Carsten Holm Pedersen held a talk on the synergies between systems and operational excellence. The main theme of his talk was what he called “The 4 Myths” about manufacturing information systems or as I refer to them as “The 4 Misunderstanding” about Manufacturing System implementations. I really liked his message so I wanted to share it here.

Focus ROI
Sole focus on ROI ensures success because it defines qualitative business goals and sets a defined scope. However this also means that focus is diverted to “easy wins” rather than usable solutions and enhancement that have obvious value are ignored or rejected as “scope creep”. Furthermore there is risk that synergies from process improvement and other OpEx initiatives are not incorporated or supported by the system.

Use of Standard Systems
Application of standard systems is more effective and guarantees use of “Best Practices”. They reduce risk and provide superior maintainability. The reality is that these so-called “Best Practices” are not necessarily a good fit to your process and sometimes they are not “best” at all, but simply a result of “that is the way we have always done it” thinking. As such they sometimes do not provide the flexibility or adaptability to specific processes and force unnecessary constraints. Focus is diverted to “What we can buy” rather than “What we need”.

Competitive approaches increase productivity
Employing a competitive approach where different projects are competing for the same funds motivates and steers project teams to achieve better results. In fact just the contrary is true, this approach only ensures sub-optimization. It inhibits collaboration and does not leverage the inherent need for systems to be built to support the process. Systems are built to provide specific point solutions and not enable a streamlined lean manufacturing process or superior process understanding.

Integration should be avoided.
Interoperability between systems is not that important and if it is implemented has to be in real time. On the contrary one of the inherent attributes of Manufacturing Systems is interoperability with all levels in the manufacturing process. Not including interoperability with other system may seriously inhibit the usability of a solution and some obvious benefits to process visibility may be ignored. Also each interface may have different “real-time” requirements that have to be evaluated by needs and value.

There is obviously much more to these than what I can put in this post so let me know what you think and make sure to follow Carsten for more discussion on these topics.

What is a Manufacturing System - Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:28:00 +0000

This is a post that is long overdue. A central discussion topic on this blog is Manufacturing Systems and I have not yet really explained what I mean by a Manufacturing System. I have talked about manufacturing system that are agile and Holonic, so it is about time that I posted a more practical or at least clear description of what I mean.

Most definitions of Manufacturing System are focused on describing a solution, or more precisely the functionality and architecture of a Manufacturing System solution. For example the MESA model presents number of functional categories from a business perspective, where as the ISA-95 (S-95) model provides a solution architecture based on functional decomposition. All these are of course relevant and useful yet it seems that the problem only interesting to academia – try to Google it. It is assumed that we in industry all know what it is – a dangerous proposition to have.

We all agree that the key to a successful deployment of a Manufacturing System is the understanding of the problem that it is designed to solve. This obviously not a novel approach – it is what everybody attempts to do with the system’s requirement or URS. Yet my experience shows that even in the requirement phase many resort to using the existing models, thus reverting to describe the problem with the solution itself. Quite confusing isn’t it?

So here is my take on what a Manufacturing System is, or in other words the Shop Floor Management Problem. I like to describe it as the problem of integrating 3 important flows in a manufacturing organization. The 2 vertical flows provide Product and Logistical information while the horizontal flow is the physical flow of material, equipment and people.

The Shop Floor Management problem is therefore: How to make use of the information provided by the Product and Logistical flow to efficiently and effectively manage the physical flow of Resources and Materials (also known as the production process). Simple isn’t it - that is what a Manufacturing System is designed to do. Try to imagine a seasoned and effective production supervisor or plant manager – the Shop Floor Management problem is very close to his real life job duties.

It is obviously not that simple and there is of course much more detail that is yet to be discussed. I plan to provide some of this in upcoming posts (hence this post is named Part I). Also this is not meant to take away from the importance and complexity of product development, process engineering, operations, and planning. It is a model that is focused on explaining the particulars of managing a shop floor (yes this is my disclaimer).

More detail to come in future posts…

Next week at AdvaMed2010 in DC

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 22:20:00 +0000

Next week I will be attending AdvaMed2010 in Washington DC in an attempt to mingle with the top of the food chain of the Medical Device industry. If you didn’t know AdvaMed is the premier industry organization for the Medical Device industry and the AdvaMed2010 conference is its annual meeting. Essentially it is a place for smaller Med Device companies to market themselves to venture capitalist and larger companies.

Medical Devices is one of our core markets at NNE Pharmaplan and hence we are hoping to leverage this event to make ourselves better known in the industry. Kind of old school marketing but I am hoping that there is value there? I look forward to an interesting week and getting to meet some interesting companies and people. Also last time I have been to DC is in 1995 so I am long due. If you are around give me a shout.

Common question - What MES should I use?

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:58:00 +0000

I just returned from the CBI MES conference and found that the main theme or at least that many the attendees were interested in finding the right MES. Yes I know - “it is maybe easier to achieve world peace”. It seems there is no clear answer – no surprise! “It depends”, was a common answer, some said “it is what you make of it”, and I completely agree.

In my many years of studying the “Shop Floor Management” (aka Manufacturing Systems) problem I found that apart from all the technical and functional aspects, the common element that makes an MES implementation and operation successful is user involvement. The users (across all functions) really have to want it! MESs are complex and sometimes cumbersome. They touch many different functions in a manufacturing business, most critically they manage the value stream – or where value is being made. That makes their adoption and acceptance brittle.

In most cases MES products are aligned with specific industries and hence it is pretty straightforward to make an initial short list. But this is not always true, a vendor may be trying to penetrate your specific vertical opening up potential to influence them – and possibly also get a good deal. There are obviously many other factors that can and do play in. “It depends” is always a true statement when talking about fit of a specific MES product to your environment, and therefore it is always important to know what you need.

So how do you determine what you need? Most people will tell you, and correctly so, that you have to use formal (true and tested) models such as the MESA model or the ISA 95 standard. This is the boring but necessary part of the preparatory and selection phases for the MES. I am not saying you should skip the detail; it is by all means necessary. We all know that the devil is in the details, but using these models with no clear focus will not help either. You should use these models to make sure that you have not forgotten or omitted something not to define your problem. That is something only you and your company know, and in most cases it is very specific to your company or business. I prefer to use the 5 whys method to get to the root-cause and then write up as a series of problems – in simple language.

Another important thing to remember is to build on success as Lean practitioners advocate. It works best with a focused Kaizen-like event where a specific need is addressed. When people in the company observe or have taken part in a successful change the value seems transparent and obvious - and you don’t have to even explain or sell it. It is infinitely easier to convince people this way. In fact the only really successful MES projects, at least in my experience, have been when the operators and engineers embraced the system because it addressed a specific problem they had. Yes I know this seems trivial and is also the basis of modern product management, but it is really much more challenging than it seems.

So what have we learned from all of this? As many of the speakers at the conference re-iterated; you need to have a clear focus of the problem. It makes it is easier to build a business case to justify the investment – trivial really. But at the end of the day you have to want it, otherwise it will never happen.

Extreme Gobbledygook - Funny

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:32:00 +0000

In connection with my recent post about describing what I do a colleague reminded me of the famous Rockwell spoof about the “Retro Encabolator”. I thought this would be interesting to share and yes, this is really kind of nerdy and techie-humor but none the less funny. This takes gobbledygook and to another level – enjoy.

Next week at CBI MES conference

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:51:00 +0000

Next week I will be at the CBI MES conference in San Diego. It is set to be very interesting conference with a good representation from MES vendors but more importantly there is broad participation from the life science industry both Med Device and BioPharma. A great opportunity to learn how these companies have been able to leverage technology to improve performance and compliance. I will have my notebook ready since I need to get some good real-life examples for a session that helping to plan for the ISPE annual meeting. I have also been able to involve MESA and we are planning to promote the European Conference and other events.

I also look forward to the conference because I have never been to San Diego and the venue isn't to shabby either J. I hope to see many of you out there and do some catch-up. Follow me on Tweeter to get live updates from the conference if you are interested.

"Lean technology" a Manufacturing Systems perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:10:00 +0000

My colleagues and I are in the process of preparing an educational session that will be held at the ISPE annual event in November. So as usual I spend some time looking through my archives for relevant material that I already have – I call it 're-cycling' :-). This time I came across something that I never published or used and so I thought I would share it here. It is an attempt to explore the synergies of the Lean and Manufacturing Systems concepts. Read and tell me what you think…

Manufacturing Technology; A familiar phrase considered part of the everyday vocabulary. What about Lean Technology? Not a common phrase, but the idea of lean manufacturing supported through technology should be as much a part of the vocabulary as Manufacturing Technology. Lean thinking advocates simplification of manufacturing units so they can be more easily shifted to enable the flow of value. So in essence the “lean technology” concept supplements lean thinking by combining state-of-the-art manufacturing with advanced software systems in an integrated environment.

Using information systems in lean manufacturing is not a new concept, nor is it new to the lean movement. Many examples exist that prove that manufacturing (software) system can support a lean organization. Unfortunately most commonly information technology systems for manufacturing tend to become large monolithic systems of great complexity. They are designed to provide generic functionality to fit major industry verticals that can be configured specifically for each implementation. At the same time the uniqueness and the complexities of the specific manufacturing operations make the ability to only configure these solutions more a myth than reality. Most of the system vendors will of course argue against this - however the reality is that in order to meet the requirements of the manufacturing businesses they are forced to implement complex customizations. That is what I wrote on my post about Customize or Compromise.

Although lean thinking advocates the application of a set of specific common concepts, the actual implementation of these concepts in real life tends to be unique to each production line and plant. Information systems that are used to support these lean lines and plants have to be able to provide common functionality to support these concepts. Yet, they also have to be able to support the uniqueness of each implementation. Furthermore they need to be able to support the changes that are inherent in a lean system due to the continuous improvements as they are accomplished.

In summary here is my suggestion for the general functionality of a Manufacturing System that can support a Lean manufacturing environment. (BTW I know that these go against the grain by not using a problem-oriented approach – I will have to redefine this ASAP)

Value stream: We all know that value is identified by the specific needs of the customer hence the Manufacturing System should be usable and implementable to support only these specific processes that add value. In other words the system once implemented should not require or be constrained to use extra processes or involves extra steps if they are not directly part of the value flow.
Implement flow: The Manufacturing System should employ a value centric process model that is easily managed and accessible to all the relevant people. This will allow a transparent view of the value flow and thus allow engineers and operators to ensure production flow, be it a one-piece flow, supermarkets, or other relevant Lean solutions.
Execute Pull: This is kind of the obvious requirement that involves the enablement of pull execution and dispatching of WIP. This may include features and functionality to enable or enforce flow and managing kanbans, supermarkets, balancing, etc.
Enable Perfection: Enable perfection by providing the production and process visibility needed for the continuous improvement efforts. This is the part of the system that provides Intelligence (a topic that I have written a few relevant posts about). In addition the Manufacturing System should provide adequate configurability, extendibility and customizability that support continuous improvement.

What is it that I do?

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:18:00 +0000

Have you ever tried to explain to somebody what it is that you do, who is unfamiliar or not that interested in what you do. I have that problem with my wife and family all the time. When I try the interest-loss is immediate – somewhere after the middle of the 3rd sentence. When I ask my kids what they think that I do – they say that I sit in front of the computer all day and talk on the phone, which in a way is quite precise. Typically a specific keyword from my description sticks and so when asked what I do, it comes back as; ‘I think he is fixing software’, or ‘oh yes he is training’.

Although this may seem trivial the exercise in explaining what it is that you do is very valuable. When marketing in the new media it is important to tell the story in simple language – I call it the ‘children’s’ explanation. A simple plain English description of what it is that I do, without using any technical or industry jargon and without complicated adjectives. The less ‘gobbledygook’ the easier it is for people to understand and by the way it also helps to keep their attention. As in the Hebrew adage – “If you explain it slowly, I will understand quickly”.

Try it you will be surprised how hard it is and how much value it brings.

Here is mine:

I help people and companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry that produce medicine, drugs and tools for doctors with their computer systems. The use computers to make sure that their products have no defects, as wells as to make sure that they produce their products exactly the way the recipes instruct. The computer systems save and maintain all the information during the production so that it can be used to analyze what happened if there is a defect, or how to improve the production process. The computers also help automate some of the steps in the process.

EMI or BI - what are those anyways?

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:52:00 +0000

Lately I have had inquiries from a couple of customers about providing “intelligence”, as in manufacturing intelligence, well I believe that is a good topic I said… (Hint, see my blog’s title).

In most cases their curiosity came from either seeing or working with an EMI or Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence system. However when I asked about how they would like to use the intelligence I found out that they where asking about BI – Business Intelligence behavior, yet they wanted manufacturing metrics like the EMI system’s demo. That is an interesting discussion that I have mentioned a few times in this blog. I believe that what they really want are timely and sometimes real-time intelligence about their manufacturing operations provided in KPI lists, metrics and charts but also analytics capabilities such as “slicing and dicing” and “drill downs”.

Unfortunately I have found that such solutions are rare if they exist at all. It seems that EMI is a separate animal than BI and the problems that they are trying to address are more complicated than they generally convey in their sales and marketing information. Most EMIs do not provide an effective way to aggregate and correlate information to support BI style analytics, while the BI vendors’ understanding of 'real-time' and timeliness leave much to be desired for application in the manufacturing operations world.

I am back, sorry for the delay...

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:19:00 +0000

It has been a while since I posted something here, and I have a long list of bad excuses. (Here is the last one).

It has been a very exciting and busy time for me and my family. We have relocated from Indiana to the San Francisco Bay Area with all the excitement and hard work that follows. I guess that we are getting settled now so I am going to try and pick-up the blogging just a bit. I have quite a few interesting things to share so I hope find some time over the next month to do some more blogging.

I have been involved in some very interesting projects. I am working with BioMarin helping them figure out what MES will work best for them and some of the strategies around implementation. I have also had a short stint with Amgen looking at their Manufacturing Business Intelligence initiative. Apart from that I have been involved with a few of the Bay Area Biotech companies while at the same time trying to find new customers in North America.

On the event front I am planning to be at CBI's annual MES event (San Diego, in Sep.), AdvaMed (Washington DC, in Oct.), and the ISPE annual meeting (Orlando, Nov.) where we are organizing an educational session on Operational Excellence. So if you are going to be at any of these events let me know so we can catch-up. It’s going to be an interesting and busy period.

My Presentation at the MESA 2010 Annual Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Wed, 12 May 2010 00:05:00 +0000

In June I will be presenting at the MESA 2010 North American conference. The conference is going to be held in Dearborn, MI (near Detriot) hosted by Ford at their conference facility. I wanted to share the abstract here on my blog. I will be co-presenting with Kasper Larsen from Novo Nordisk and my colleague from NNE Pharmaplan, Asger Sharp-Johansen

The presentation shares our experiences from the current global MES rollout project at Novo Nordisk. This is an ongoing long term multi faceted project that involves a staggered deployment of a commercial MES software package to all of Novo Nordisk’s manufacturing sites.

Deploying a new manufacturing system is a complex and risky proposition for any company, rolling out such a system to multiple sites on a global scale may be even considered scary. In order to mitigate the risks and manage the complexity of this immense undertaking Novo Nordisk makes the best use of people and technology to evolve a best practice approach that is continually improved upon. This approach includes technical and organizational aspects that cover the complete life cycle of the manufacturing system’s deployment. In addition the “out-of-the-box” feature set of the software obviously did not suffice and navigating this predicament, coined as "Customize or Compromise", is another interesting topic.

Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company with 87 years of innovation and leadership in diabetes care, haemophilia care, growth hormone therapy, and hormone replacement therapy. It has international production facilities and employs more than 29,300 employees in 76 countries.

Word Cloud of this Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:29:00 +0000

Just for fun I thought it was interesting to visualize what this blog is about. I found this tool called Wordle via the Duct Tape Marketing blog that I read. I think it is an amazing way to visualize out what a blog is about, in my case not surprisingly mine is about... well metrics, intelligence, and manufacturing. It is nice to get this verified.

Customize or Compromise

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:50:00 +0000

I am currently involved in a global project to rollout a specific MES (Manufacutirng Execution System) to a host of sites. This is an immense undertaking and therefore we are spending some time pondering some of the things that we can do to ease the pain and more importantly learn as we go along. I think that I will have quite a few more posts on this topic as we progress; initially I wanted to share some thoughts about using a commercially available MES software product, sometimes also called COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) and the customizations that are always required.

The first topic is revolves around the question whether a COTS MES product can be productively used in a real world scenario only using the features that are available OOTB (Out-of-the-box). I believe that the answer is a resounding NO, but I may be wrong. It is obviously something that many practitioners are challenged with and therefore I think it makes a good discussion topic.

A COTS system will always be a compromise. The end customer wants his requirements satisfied based on his priorities. The vendor’s priorities, on the other hand, are driven by the need to pick the customer’s requirements that he knows the product can solve best – and then sometimes even persuade the customer that its best for him.

Such COTS MESs have a specific set of features that can be applied to a given scenario sometimes represented by a functional requirement. I like to call these "solution scenario" or "solution approaches" since sometimes a requirements is satisfied by a specific way to use a number of available features. This may be somewhat comparable to a software Design Pattern. Unlike a system that is a custom (or tailored) solution this presents some challenges.

For specific scenarios there may exists one or more solution approaches using available OOTB features. This is the postive scenario - in such cases we are good to go.
For specific scenarios the OOTB feature set may not provide a solution approach. In other words an OOB solution does not exist and hence a customization may be required. the question here becomes: "Can we live with out this?"
For specific scenarios the OOTB feature set may be able to provide a solution approach but it is constrained or lacking. In such cases a decision has to be made to compromise or customize.

If you only encounter scenario #1 then there is no problem, however I have never seen this happen. Dealing with scenarios #2 and #3 can be summed up as "compromise or customize". What do you want to do?

What is Intelligence, and why do we need it?

noreply@blogger.com (Gilad Langer) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:34:00 +0000

I believe that it is time to get back on topic in this blog, which is Intelligence in manufacturing and manufacturing systems in general. With that in mind I was looking thru my archives and came across something I once wrote as a positioning statement for an intelligence product – I guess it is not hard to figure out what company that was for? So here goes…

In one of my previous posts I tried to bring up the point that we need to consider metrics in the context of what they are needed for and how they are going to be used. I believe that is the best way to understand how to provide the right intelligence in a given scenario. But what is Intelligence? Well that is a very serious subject, but let’s take in the context of manufacturing and process improvement.

Intelligence implies the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience. As such Intelligence is information valued for its timeliness and relevance rather than its detail or accuracy in contrast with "data" which typically refers to precise or particular information, or "fact".

In the context of manufacturing, Intelligence is a fundamental ingredient influencing the system’s level of performance in reaching its objectives. A manufacturing business system (humans included) is a system that learns during its existence. In other words, it learns, for each situation, which response permits it to reach its objectives. It continually acts and by acting reaches its objectives more often than pure chance would indicate. We can observe the following about Intelligence in manufacturing:

It is an enabler for performance – Performance Management
We need to act on it – Actionable Intelligence
We need to learn from it – Continuous Improvement

Intelligent manufacturing is not a smarter way of producing things; it is a human centric approach where humans interact with the process be it automatic or manual, gathering the right information to take intelligence decisions based on actionable information. It is much more than visibility. Just having the information is of course helpful, but it needs to be taken one step farther. It needs to be provided in a way that people can intuitively capitalize on it using their knowledge and understanding to make effective decisions.

Henri Poincare once noted in a related topic that “Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.”

What is an effective decision then? It is a decision that has an outcome that drives increased performance and continuous improvement. Intelligence is therefore not solely about metrics, KPIs or the ability to drill down into the data. In order to increase performance we need to quantify what is important. Hence intelligence is about quantifying what is important, or quantifying the unquantifiable.