Information For
Manufacturing
FRICTIONLESS FACTORY - SMOOTH PRODUCTION FLOW FROM RAW MATERIALS TO FINISHED OUTPUT
Procurement managers at aerospace and defense (A & D) manufacturers and maintenance, repair, and overhaul facilities (MROs) work with thousands of suppliers. The VP of Operations and manufacturing must manage a massive flow of arriving shipments and complex work-in-process. Together, they must account for everything that enters a factory, deliver parts at the right time and place for production, then mark and track every asset they produce for defense forces.
PRESSURE TO "DO MORE WITHOUT MORE"
A & D contractors aspire to lean manufacturing with maximum efficiency, attacking production waste of waiting (time on hand), unnecessary transport, incorrect processing, excess Inventory, and unnecessary movement. They must ensure that logistics, and their tracking of raw materials, parts, and tools, does not turn into disarray under peak conditions and threaten the production flow. Moreover, they are always under pressure to raise output without hiking inventory levels. Their mandate is to “do more without more.”
The dock-to-stock process must be efficient and secure. Lost parts lead to overstocked inventory and production delay. The volume and complexity of tracking raw materials and components in A & D is extremely high and requires automation. Inventory managers need to be alerted to shipment delays, and problem conditions affecting containers waiting to be unloaded. Even in modernized facilities, factory managers need to reduce or eliminate time spent looking for missing items.
Everything the A & D supplier makes or repairs for shipment into theater must have a DoD RFID tag to satisfy the TACOM mandate, and the majority need IUID (Item Unique Identification) tags as well. Older assets coming back into an MRO facility for overhaul may bear previous-generation ANSI tags. The frictionless factory demands more item visibility and intelligence be available to managers.
A FULL VIEW OF INCOMING SHIPMENTS AND INVENTORY
A combination of both passive RFID and active RFID and SatCom- enabled devices, joined with the Savi SmartChain platform for asset management, give the manufacturer a comprehensive view of incoming shipments and make it very difficult for counterfeit parts can slip into the supply chain.
At every step from arrival, from the unloading dock to stockpile, and then on to the point of use, factories and MROs need to avoid lost inventory and lost time. Savi SmartChain can be finely customized to the specific requirements of manufacturers. The core capability is to ensure that assets are always “found.”
Managers can set alerts from Savi SmartChain, specifying alert rules for the project, type of material, and other criteria. When a problem condition is detected – such as a pallet of raw materials or components leaving the factory unexpectedly – the system notifies appropriate personnel.
OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE THAT IMPROVES THE QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY OF YOUR MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
Savi Technology supports the frictionless factory from incoming shipment through manufacturing and post-production processes. Savi SmartChain can locate assets with 99.9% accuracy. This nearly eliminates time lost tracking shipments, or searching for parts and tools in-factory, assists inventory reconciliation and helps block counterfeit parts from entering the supply chain.
As the CIO, CFO, or Operations VP at a manufacturer, you will see many benefits that flow from trackability and illuminate the last blind spot – the shop floor – with operational intelligence and analytics.
Savi SmartChain contributes to lean manufacturing in other ways. Its asset tracking helps Inventory replenishment based on consumption, rather than on forecasting. It tracks work-in-progress, ensuring assembly kits are complete and located correctly.
Savi makes the only readers which are backwards-compatible with ANSI tags found on older assets coming back for overhaul. Savi Technology also provides the most widely used solutions for satisfying the IUID and TACOM mandates for barcodes and/or tracking tags on items manufactured. Integration with SAP applications allows SAVI SmartChain to assist in billing completion.
Savi SmartChain helps to integrate the full span of factory processes and events, boosts intelligence available to the shop floor, and removes a great of keystroke data entry from manufacturing to save time and reduce errors.