How can we help you?
We offer you a solution to your questions. If you need to learn more, don’t hesitate to contact us.
1. What are the steps of your consultancy offer?
The analysis of the activities and the company evaluation go through 4 main phases:
- Assessment of company maturity
- Identification of strengths and weaknesses
- Identification of opportunities
- Definition of the digital transformation roadmap
2. Why do I need to know my business maturity level?
Because before investing in digital transformation, it is essential to understand the organizational and productive state of your company, in relation to both digital technologies and organizational processes.
The achievement of successful results depends on the company’s ability to understand its working context and define a roadmap, before applying innovative solutions.
3. What are the reasons why I should use the t.fabrica MES?
- To identify efficiency losses
- To manage the life cycle of production orders. From the release to the plants, up to the delivery of the finished product
- To monitor the status of the plants with respect to production stops
- To analyze the causes of measurable effects (poorly organized layout, too long lead times, inadequacy of the production and maintenance process, poor working procedures, lack of personnel training, incorrect product or production process design, lack of performance…)
- To make the production cycle more efficient in order to reduce delivery times, minimize waste, eliminate operator errors and increase efficiency
- To improve the quality of products
- To decrease the ROI of assets thanks to greater efficiency
4. What does the Mes t.fabrica include?
- Data Collection Form
- Production order management module
- Module for the management and planning of production activities
- Material traceability management module
- Plant Dashboard (status of the machines and production progress)
- Performance analysis module
5. How are production stops and errors managed?
Production stops have an impact on the value of the product, both in economic and qualitative terms. The purpose of the MES is to allow the identification of systematic errors. Resolving these errors is the responsibility of management through the analyzes that the MES system makes available (e.g. Pareto analysis or Root Cause Analysis).
6. How is data collected?
In automatic collection, the system is interfaced with the machines through standard protocols. We can imagine the MES as a sort of gateway to the machines of the OT world. While waiting for the smart factory, in which each machine will be able to communicate with the others, the introduction of a MES system that allows communication with heterogeneous systems and/or machines represents the most effective solution.
7. Can I implement the t.fabrica MES in the Cloud?
Yes, the installation can be both on premise and in the cloud. The advantages of the cloud are mainly due to the ability to grow the investment in the cloud infrastructure according to business growth. Techsol proposes the Microsoft Azure PaaS, which includes the infrastructure, i.e. servers, storage and network, but also middleware, development tools, BI services, database management systems, etc.
Our support consists in identifying the most suitable Cloud solutions that guarantee business continuity.
8. What are the main metrics used by t.fabrica?
KPIs are performance indicators for measuring the performance of an activity or business processes, with the aim of bringing out inefficiencies in the production system. Techsol mainly deals with OEE and TEEP*, but the customer can evaluate the customization of specific and personalized indicators for his business.
- *OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is made up of further individual KPIs: Availability, Performance and Quality. Each of these items has a range from 0% to 100%:
- Having losses on the availability of the plant means having production stops.
- Having quality losses means having anomalies on the product
- Having losses on Performance means having losses with respect to the target speed of the machine.
- TEEP (Total Equipment Effectiveness Performance) which represents the efficiency of the asset compared to calendar time (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days in a year).
TEEP = (disponible time / (calendar time ) × OEE
9. What kind of preparation is required before implementing the t.fabrica MES?
In general, the MES system acts as a guide in tracing process activities by implementing workflows. A support period is sufficient to obtain all the advantages of the solution, including:
- become self-taught with automated workflows
- make the best decisions based on information provided by the system
10. What type of investment does the adoption of an MES require?
The cost of a MES project depends mainly on the starting company context, on the type and quantity of functional modules that are deemed necessary and on the availability and collaboration of the customer regarding the project. Thanks to the modularity of the solution it is possible to manage the investment made in detail and a detailed analysis of the ROI will allow to identify the advantages obtainable from the MES and the costs to be incurred for its implementation.
11. Does the implementation of t.fabrica require production downtime?
No. Even if the machine/plant should receive the information useful for processing from the MES, the work can be organized so that there is no plant downtime.
12. What is the role of Techsol after the start of the project?
After the coaching period, Techsol provides support to the customer, thanks to continuous improvement both from a technical and dedicated consultancy point of view.