A crucial ingredient to manufacturing consistently high quality products is information. In particular, quality management personnel who work for manufacturers need real-time
actionable information, with which they can better control and improve processes, save money, and increase revenue for their companies.
InfinityQS manufacturing quality software tools enable organizations to
convert shop floor data into actionable information. All of our customers have data collection capabilities that they rely on. There might be data coming from hand-held gauges and bench-specific data collection devices, from PLC data streams, as well as data from an ERP system or an MES product. Enormous amounts of shop floor capture data, coming from everywhere. The problem is that the data resides in separate areas—“data islands.”
By definition, these data islands are separate; they neither talk to nor integrate with one another. Manufacturers need to get their data together—all in one place.
Bringing Shop Floor Data Together
InfinityQS
ProFicient™ has the ability to take all those data islands and act as the bridge between them. You can then convert these islands into
shared information. That is what ProFicient is meant to do. It's meant to help ensure that those data islands are no longer islands at all.
Instead, we can sample and extract the data from those previously difficult to access (or inaccessible) data islands, so that all that data is stored in
one single repository. Most organizations simply do not have a way of consolidating, coordinating, or leveraging the data that's found in those islands. That’s where InfinityQS can step in and help.
Standardizing for Manufacturing Quality and Efficiency
ProFicient standardizes the various, disparate data formats when it stores them in one single data repository. That data then becomes accessible across all those data streams, across all those previously inaccessible data islands. What's nice about that is that now you have one place for all of the critical data in a manufacturing plant, even across multiple manufacturing plants.
ProFicient also helps manufacturers to improve quality right there on the shop floor—we've created this software to be very easy for operators to work with.
Operators are Key — Real-Time Data
So, a machine operator or production line operator, anyone who's making products on a daily basis, receives data specific to their process, or their machine, and ProFicient provides real-time
actionable information to that operator—telling them about what has changed and what valuable information they need in order to ensure that their process runs as consistently as possible, and with the greatest efficiency possible. It’s more than just data aggregation and consolidation; we're providing the very people that are making products with the information they need to ensure that their processes are as efficient and as high quality as possible.
Access to Data and Information
And ProFicient provides information that improves the ways in which managers have access to this data. On the shop floor, when operators are entering data or data are coming in automatically, ProFicient provides information to managers and to other support personnel that they need in order to better support the manufacturing processes out on the shop floor.
When unusual events occur (and make no mistake, they will)—for instance, a process veers outside specification limits, or an inconsistency is introduced into the manufacturing process—because all the data is centralized, everyone important to the smooth running of the production line is informed via alerts and emails.
If you have a manager who's traveling, perhaps in a busy airport, they will receive an email from ProFicient, letting them know that line 16 has gone out of spec, or whatever the specific issue may be. That manager is instantly made aware of whatever is happening on their production line. And, of course, the operator is also instantly made aware of that.
Keep the Whole Team in the Loop — Quality Professionals
And you can send that same information to your onsite quality professionals supporting the manufacturing processes. Because information is stored in one place, quality professionals can more easily prioritize their quality projects and their quality activities. ProFicient is a one-stop shop for your operators, managers, and quality professionals to get the information they need in order to ensure quality success on the shop floor.
Decision-Making at the Highest Levels
The C-level people, vice presidents, and business owners can also have access to the summary information that ProFicient creates. We’ve found that this helps them to direct where they'd like to invest in additional technologies (or where they don't need to invest in additional technologies).
There's been a real push over the past several years towards automation in manufacturing. And what we have found is that immediately spending on additional technologies is not necessarily a good thing, because if you have a low quality output from a production line, then you don't want to automate that and just create more bad product at a greater pace.
In many cases, what business owners, plant managers, and others are finding out is that by focusing their efforts in these areas where quality may be an issue, they can take older processes, older machines, and dramatically improve the quality levels of those machines just by tapping into the information that ProFicient provides them.
Searching for the Highest Manufacturing Quality Possible
And by doing so, organizations often find that they don't need to spend a tremendous amount of money on automation because ProFicient provides the information to help eliminate quality defects.
Just because you're automating something doesn't necessarily mean that quality levels will improve. In many cases, it means that quality levels actually decrease and degrade, and that's a problem. Imagine spending millions of dollars on some brand new automation only to find that the quality levels didn’t improve or are worse than they were before.
ProFicient can help you bring all your data together, where it can do the most good, make those difficult technology purchasing decisions with some peace of mind, and keep your products coming off the production lines at the highest quality possible.
Take advantage of the technology at your fingertips today: contact one of our account managers (1.800.772.7978 or
via our website) for more information.