How to Answer the Performance Question in Your Manufacturing Process

Manufacturing processes change. Customers want more, and demand for production is higher than ever. As a result, companies need to change to maintain and increase their market share, and it’s important to get it right.

Using the collective wisdom of your organization to decide on process changes can work. However, it’s not the best way to choose the optimum, most cost-effective options. It’s better to base decisions on data rather than making guesses based on experience.

As you consider implementing process changes, you may benefit from combining Autodesk Factory Utilities and ProModel.

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In the Applied Software on-demand webinar, “Be Proactive with Autodesk and ProModel,” you can hear about implementing modern manufacturing workflows and technology.

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When you utilize ProModel to revamp your manufacturing workflows, you can realize these benefits:

• Install new processes seamlessly with minimal change orders.
• Ensure manpower, equipment and processes meet current and future needs.
• Be more agile, explore better options and reduce operating costs.
• Enable new engineers to become productive faster.
• Provide data to stakeholders that is easy to understand.

 

In the on-demand webinar “Enable the Digital Factory,” Todd Schmoock explains how ProModel combines with Autodesk Factory Utilities to bring value. Factory Utilities answers the question “Will it fit?”, and ProModel answers the question, “Will it perform?” Companies can save money and disruption by validating a process in advance using software. ProModel helps design, simulate and optimize a factory layout using four proprietary types of analysis:

• Descriptive
• Diagnostic
• Predictive
• Prescriptive

Descriptive and diagnostic analyses study existing factory layouts and processes to find issues and come up with ideas to improve the process.

Predictive and prescriptive analyses can study proposed layouts and workflows, as well as new products that will run on existing lines. 

The studies enable a company to see and understand problems and work through them before purchasing equipment and assigning labor.

 

ProModel predicts the behavior of constraints, interdependencies, complexity, and variability. It helps virtually maximize throughput and productivity, increase resource utilization, see and eliminate bottlenecks, minimize cycle time, and properly size work in progress.

On its website, ProModel describes one global customer’s journey in building a new boiler manufacturing facility based on an existing plant. To make sure they were basing operations in the new plant on sound practices at the existing plant, they used ProModel to run through seven scenarios. The objectives were for both plants to achieve the same production capacity, while implementing sustainable best practices and Lean initiatives.

Using the ProModel Process Simulator, the company achieved labor gains and improved their process, saving about $200,000 annually in each facility. The ProModel solution took one hour, while using collective wisdom and manually observing the possible scenarios would have taken 35 weeks.  

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To learn more about how ProModel can empower your company, contact Applied Software today and talk to an industry specialist.

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