Chemical Processing - November 2007 - (Page 27)

By John Harrison, SAP Canada G lobal competitiveness is placing tremendous pres- sure on cost, quality and responsiveness in manufacturing. Increasing emphasis on output from distant sites hampers management visibility and control. A premium is put on asset efficiency but effective comparative measures are difficult to achieve. Plants use copies of master data, creating compliance and quality issues. Production personnel lack the decision support information to meet their targets. The business and financial impacts of production asset exceptions can’t be monitored or controlled at the enterprise level. Resources — money, people and time — are stretched thinner and thinner. If you face any of these issues, consider integrating product and operational management into your environment. With such integration, you have visibility into all aspects of your manufacturing operations. This provides the ability to respond faster and minimize impact to the business and bottom line, driving increased yields, asset utilization and order fulfillment — in other words, you’ve got the “perfect plant.” The perfect plant Such a facility must excel in three essential areas (Figure 1): Asset performance and utilization. Assets are monitored so that events of concern automatically get visibility. Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) processes are optimized and details about all assets are available in a single source. EAM www.chemicalprocessing.com processes are tightly linked to manufacturing processes. Asset performance and utilization has moved from traditional preventive maintenance to a collaborative model. Manufacturing execution. This is so effective that it’s nearly event-free due to proactive monitoring and automated event handling that’s tightly coupled with EAM and the enterprise. Here you have visibility across all critical processes that contribute to success of manufacturing execution. The reach of your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system extends to the shop floor, accelerating operational efficiencies while at the same time ensuring safe and compliant operations. Operational scheduling/planning. Changes aren’t primarily driven by unplanned events in manufacturing but rather by demand shifts and other factors. Manufacturing is able to manage and react more rapidly and reliably to these changes. This allows for the optimization of existing manufacturing assets and processes to reduce waste and variability. The integration of the plant with the extended enterprise and supply chain increases responsiveness to any changes. The perfect plant aligns and improves key performance indicators and so offers significant benefits in a number of areas: • decreased manufacturing/raw materials costs (5% is typical) through process monitoring and increased visibility; November 2007 • 27 http://www.chemicalprocessing.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chemical Processing - November 2007

Chemical Processing - November 2007 Contents From the Editor ChemicalProcessing.com Field Notes In Process Energy Saver Compliance Advisor PAT isn't Standing Pat Pursue the Perfect Plant Eliminate Exchanger Tubing Troubles Portable Conveyor Speeds Paint Production Process Puzzler Plant InSites Equipment & Services Product Spotlight/Classifieds Ad Index End Point

Chemical Processing - November 2007

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