Manufacturing/Production Management - Production of Goods and Services

Top Management Challenge - Profitable production and supply of quality product as per customers' delivery requirements.

Getting order and fulfilling it - Sell and Supply

Every business has to produce or acquire product or service to supply to customers. In the current time, supply chain management has become a subject that takes care of distribution, manufacturing and supply activities. But still, production management is very important activity for any company with manufacturing facilities. Now a days, a car company is considered as an assembly organization. But that assembly operation is the most important stage as this operation only makes the company as the leader of the supply chain and in direct contact with the customer who provides the cash flow to the entire supply chain.


Technology Concerns of Top Managers of Manufacturing Companies (PWC 18th Annual Global CEO Survey - Manufacturing Cut, 2015)

Manufacturing CEOs emphasize the importance of 3D printing. But they’re increasingly worried about the speed at which technology is changing and the growing number of cyber threats, especially when it comes to 3D printing. CEOs are asking their COOs to take actions to  realize the transformational benefits of 3D printing, including appropriate product design, material selection,
and use criteria. As 3D printing is adopted, information will be housed and concentrated in digital files that, and like any other digital document, is subject to security breach.


The increase in robotics in the manufacturing industry is also changing the skillset needed. Could a greater robotic work¬force actually drive a need for more human talent to train, repair and
minister to that growing robotic workforce, not to mention the talent needed to develop the burgeoning robotic technology industry itself? CEOs are grappling with this question and looking for some useful answers.

Current Top Management Concern about Manufacturing - Digital Manufacturing

Understanding the benefits and costs of digital manufacturing and deciding to adopt it at the right time in profitable projects.

What are various components of Digital Manufacturing?

Digital manufacturing is a virtual representation of the entire manufacturing process so that designers, as they begin to design a product, can make choices about materials and processes and immediately see the impact to production on a separate virtual computer screen. The designers and the supporting manufacturing and industrial engineering people will be able to figure out  the cost to produce and the amount of energy required to produce a product prior to even turning a single chip on a machine on the shop floor. The idea of virtually representing the entire manufacturing process in a real-time virtual environment so that designers can make those hard decisions during the design phase is really what digital manufacturing contribute in a significant manner and changes the current manufacturing and design paradigms.

Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data play a key role in digital manufacturing. Determining the production schedule in real time and then comparing  that with real time information coming off the shop floor to optimizing the dispatching instructions which actually tell a machine to load the job can make the the manufacturing activity more efficient.

In the field of advanced manufacturing today, manufacturing engineers have to partner with computer engineers. Everything in the future's going to be related to Big Data, predictive analytics, and IoT. So mechanical engineers need to have a very close relationship with the predictive analytics department consisting of statisticians and computer engineers who will build softwares and customize them to do particular jobs.

A factory floor in the future will have every single machine tool with multiple sensors streaming real-time data for feeds, speeds, depths cut, oil viscosities, coolant viscosities, coolant temperatures, coolant volume flow, acoustic emissions, vibrations, and cabinet temperatures. Everything you can sense on a machine tool will have sensors and  that data will be streamed  to the cloud. Predictive analytics will be able to alert the concerned operators and managers about the problems that might happen before they happen. The maintenance will be truly predictive maintenance and preventive maintenance schedules are integrated with predictive maintenance information to created maintenance schedules for the weekend. The maintenance can be outsourced with the maintenance suppliers serving number of companies on different days in a week.

https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/manufacturing-design/embracing-the-digital-manufacturing-revolution

http://www.industryweek.com/technology/digital-manufacturing-factory-future-here-today

Challenge - Selection of Software to Support Digital Manufacturing

Option: SAP S/4HANA

Industry 4.0 solutions and the Internet of Things (IoT) are drivers of business for companies in manufacturing. The current  ERP systems are not suitable in the new environment. SAP is offering SAP S/4HANA for the new digital manufacturing environment. Will it fit your need? Top managers of manufacturing companies have to analyse and decide?

With SAP S/4HANA, every user department can realize tangible advancements in development, resulting in increased competitiveness and efficiency.

Many companies are already investing in digital customer experiences, highly customized products, smart factories, digital supply chains, new service-oriented business models for the aftermarket.  To make efficient use of such innovative solutions,  SAP S/4HANA plays a prominent role.

Strategic Business Objectives: What the Manufacturing Industry Wants

Customer focus: End customers are increasingly at the center of all activities. To gain a competitive edge, companies need to offer more tailored products, solutions, and services involving the customer in specifying his requirements and  in designing solutions. At the same time, customers are demanding more speed, reliability, and simplicity in dealing with the providers of these offerings.

Development of new business models:  New business models  based on data generated from products themselves, from customers – through digital interaction, supply chains, or sensors – or from production operations at smart factories.


User Department Demands on Future Process Support


Demand and MRP runs should be carried out on an ad hoc basis or several times in sequence, including for simulation purposes.

Production systems need to be flexible enough to accommodate short-notice changes to even the smallest batches while still meeting specifications regarding lead time or scrap KPIs.

Value chains should balance supply and demand in a more dynamic way and factor in relevant information in real time.

Sales departments are looking to take full advantage of customized product variants. Customers appreciate a wide range of choices, after all – especially when their items are delivered on time in the expected level of quality.

New services related to product usage are meant to generate excitement among users and tap into additional revenue.

ERP Undergoing Digital Transformation

Users are making new demands on ERP systems.

Data Capacity and Flexibility

Digitalization is causing the number and complexity of system postings to rise at a rapid pace. The tremendous increase in processes alone is putting considerable pressure on the traditional ERP systems designated to handle them.

When manufacturing products for the smallest customer segments (or even individual customers), every product variant continuously generates its own document chain, including on production orders and stock and delivery items. These documents then have to be processed by the cost centers, warehouses, and asset accounting departments involved, or for profit-and-loss statements.

Transparency and Intelligence

Once the requirements concerning data capacity and flexibility are met, controlling and monitoring all of the steps in the value chain in real time becomes an important success factor. Learning of market developments or the responses of a particular customer group have to be captured and attended to in real time.  Selling and production decisions need to be made and implemented based on the latest events.

Fine-tuning factors such as asset utilization, waste reduction, stock-outs, and warehouse inventory in the face of increasing complexity thus demands a system capable of recommending actions and addressing errors in a proactive way, even as the automation of routine business operations continues to progress. This transformation also places much higher requirements on the interfaces used by processors, planners, and managers.

SAP S/4HANA can help you in this new age digital transformation of your manufacturing business in individual areas:

Finance with SAP S/4HANA
Supply Chain with SAP S/4HANA
Asset Management with SAP S/4HANA
Sourcing and Procurement with SAP S/4HANA
Manufacturing with SAP S/4HANA
R&D with SAP S/4HANA
Sales with SAP S/4HANA




SAP S/4HANA offers the answers manufacturing firms need to accomplish their  main strategic objectives.

By fully eliminating key technical obstacles and making technical processes available in all areas, the suite promotes both a focus on the customer and the development of innovative business models. SAP S/4HANA also provides for data capacity and flexibility by making all of the information it contains instantly usable, all while maintaining optimal response times. Meanwhile, the transparency and intelligence it offers are tailored to each user’s specific role. Thanks to SAP S/4HANA’s smart user interface, for example, users can call up predictive support straight from the software. This makes it possible to address the cause of a problem before it even crops up, which significantly increases productivity.

It provides IT  cost efficiency  along with speed and flexibility, SAP S/4HANA is designed to reduce complexity. The suite includes an innovative data storage system that helps lower operating costs in IT, which frees up needed resources that can be used for business activities. SAP S/4HANA also makes it possible to forgo separate systems for ERP data analysis and consolidate a number of other ERP installations. In some cases, it even makes applications like SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (SAP APO) and separate supply chain management systems obsolete.

In addition, SAP S/4HANA is available in a public cloud variant that enables users (at branch offices, for example) to take advantage of ERP functions in just a few weeks. This version also integrates with systems in place at your company’s headquarters.

By continuing SAP’s 40-year success story in this field without the technical limitations of the past, SAP S/4HANA takes ERP to the next evolutionary level. It provides benefits to all types of user departments, from financial and cost accounting to all manufacturing-related processes, logistics, and sales. Manufacturing companies that switch to SAP S/4HANA now stand to take a significant leap in their development.

http://news.sap.com/sap-s4hana-ready-for-digital-manufacturing/


This article is part of #AtoZChallenge 2017 for Blogging Posts. My Theme for the Challenge is Top Management Challenges - Full List of Articles  http://nraomtr.blogspot.com/2016/12/a-to-z-2017-blogging-challenge-top.html


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