Production Data Acquisition Systems

We have come to the end of our 9-item list. In the first article of the series, I said that you can increase productivity by at least 30% with your own internal resources without the need for major investments in the business. I tried to explain how SMED, Autonomous Maintenance, 5S, Kaizen, OEE, JIT, Process Management, Sampling applications can save your company money. Today, I will start talking about the systems that will experience the fastest development: I titled the article "Transition from ERP to Subsystems" because today, ERP culture has spread to companies where 2-3 people work. Companies have more or less learned how to enter information, how to get reports and how to interpret reports. In the past, there were very few companies using ERP. Companies that switched to ERP were making a difference. Now that everyone is using ERP, the way to take the bar one step higher is to get up from the desk and observe what is happening in the field. Production Data Collection Systems are the only structure in the production area where you can see what each machine and personnel is doing second by second, how much product is produced in which quality, how much product is produced one by one, the losses of the enterprise, and the downtime.

Production Data Collection System, as the name suggests, is a system that records and reports what happens during the shift thanks to touch screens integrated into the machines in the production area. There are various companies in Turkey that do this job. Although the software logic differs, the basic philosophy of all of them is common. It is based on the logic of counting the products produced by detecting the signals coming from the production machine. Non-production times (i.e. downtimes) are also recorded either by pre-planning or by the operator manually entering the touch screen. Reports are generated by the system based on the counters coming from the machine and the recorded downtimes. In the reports, OEE values are calculated on shift, day, week, month and year basis and comparisons are made between different periods. Let's take a closer look at the data collection system of touch screens.

Two types of data are collected:

Runtimes

Downtimes Runtime is calculated in two ways: Either by receiving a signal from the machine, or by manually entering a production record. Stop times are divided into two: Planned and Unplanned Stoppages

The aim of the system is to electronically record the production activities of the lines and/or independent machines formed by machines integrated with each other in the production facilities during the day, to reveal the reasons why they stop and how the lost time caused by these stops affects the "efficiency" and thus to contribute to the profitability of the enterprise by providing a rapidly increasing efficiency in production. With the commissioning of the system, it is ensured that the sources of the problems are identified in a short time by seeing that the production facilities, which are established by spending millions of liras, cause huge costs to the enterprise due to inefficient operation caused by the inefficient operation caused by the inefficient use of capacity, which can be eliminated by improving in a short time. The system collects information through electronic signals received from the machines used in production and stores this data in the database with a certain order and algorithm. These stored data are presented with analysis screens that can be easily used by the relevant engineering office staff and contain highly detailed information.

Production Data Collection Systems give you the chance to analyze on which topics:

Which machine caused lost time and for what reason? Did this lost time affect the next machine?
How long did the operators intervene to the malfunctions?
How long did it take to fix the malfunctions?
Which consumables were used during troubleshooting?
Which operator took how much food, tea and necessity breaks?
What was the amount of product produced per unit time?
What was the yield on product basis compared to the theoretical capacity?
At what average speed of units/hour, meters/hour did he/she work during the day?
What are the lost times due to format changes (Preparation Operations, Mold Changes)?
Which machine worked with which average speed during the day, what kind of speed changes occurred at which hours?
What was the instant OEE comparison between shifts?
What about raw material, semi-finished and finished product wastage? Thanks to the monitor screens included in the system, it is possible to get detailed information about the operation of the line instantly from anywhere with internet (laptop, tablet, cell phone and barcovision screens).

It is possible to get summarized information about the current status of the construction machines through the giant screens (ANDON Boards) placed inside the facility, and beyond that, it creates a psychological effect and enables people to work more diligently thanks to the fact that machine operators can constantly monitor the current situation. The system has an online notification service and the required persons are informed by the system via text message on their cell phones. For example, when there is a stoppage or at certain intervals, a text message is sent automatically to inform the status of the work (such as the current work description, theoretical speed (pieces/hour, meters/hour), actual speed (pieces/hour), total working time, total stoppage time, total production quantity). Short message sending types are as follows: 1. Periodic information (at desired intervals, for example every 2 hours) 2. Information during shift changes 3. Information during stops and malfunctions 4. Information during format (preparation, setup, product change) changes The contents of all messages can be edited by the user.