Manufacturing Execution System

MANUFACTURING EXECUTION SYSTEM

Manufacturing Execution System and Laboratory Information Management System development

ERPMANUFACTURINGSAP

PROJECT
DESCRIPTION

MES and LIMS system were created for the tobacco factory, which is part of the international company included in the Global TOP 3.

The system is implemented and used at all stages of the production cycle, from the materials and ingredients feeding to the finished goods accounting and moving. An integration with the existing ERP WMS and SCADA systems, that allows to:

Provide operational and analytical information to managers of different levels about the processes’ status and efficiency.
Operate by production processes more efficiently using Lean manufacturing, 6-Sigma, and SPC methods.
Automate the data collection and processing with other systems integration and so to minimize the waste of time for data input, errors sick, and correction.
Have fast and full analytical reports with KPIs' monitoring, "bottlenecks" identifying and, based on trends, generate efficiency improvement plans.

BUSINESS
CONTEXT

Project timeline: STRICT

Selection process: TENDER

In 2009, the general strategy of the company was to implement the highest standards of process performance and quality assurance in all factories around the world. As a result, the management relied on increasing the level of automation in the processing and distribution of information in production, thereby increasing economic efficiency through instant KPI assessment and the rapid identification and elimination of negative factors.

Within specific indicators it means To:

Improve OEE (Overall Equipment Efficiency)
Increase Labor Productivity of the staff
Reduction of Waste and Rejection
Increase the Quality of Finished Goods
Improve Forecasting Accuracy of the expected results
Increase Profitability through the Manufacturing Cost Reduction

TECH
CONTEXT

Our task was to design and implement a unique system that unites the following main features:

data exchange with/between different systems (bridge/crossroads of information streams);
several interconnected algorithms of complex calculations;
working fast and fail-safe with maximum avoiding human faults factor;
hierarchy users access rights according to the workplace and segregation of duties/powers;
provide the ability to access the required information to employees where this access was limited due to financial reasons (like SAP account licenses).

Additional requirements:

Cover existing blind spots: material movements on the shop floor, tobacco blend preparation and transportation to cigarette lines, semi-finished products (filter rods) production, work-in-progress accounting, etc.
Ensure system agility and the possibility of further scalability for the development of the functionality.
User interface: intelligible, friendly, and customizable.

Reliably integration with SAP, SCADAs, FGaccounting, and some other accounting, measurement, and control systems.
Ensure SLA IT-support fulfillment on a 24*7 level.
Provide full tech documentation to the system and backups of it.
Comply to standard ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System.
Priority to Microsoft products.

OUTCOMES

+ 0 %

Operations
Efficiency

+ 0 %

Labor
Productivity

+ 0 %

Quality
Index

- 0 %

Waste &
Rejects

- 0 %

Manufacturing
Costs

Algorithm that collects and processes 35+ product parameters (e.g. tobacco blends and cigarettes’ physical and chemical characteristics) as well as 20+ technical and technological metrics (e.g. production cycle time, equipment shutdowns, recipe ingredients compliance control, treatment regimes data, work orders execution status, etc.).
Collection of the FG condition status data in the warehouse, quality check, and confirmation for further dispatch to clients.
Personnel access to production processes control through the online equipment monitoring system in the workshops.
Visual/sound alarm system setup
Tobacco blends feeder control (the correct blend to the right line).

Quality indices online calculation algorithm that sets business rules of the stepwise system for complex indicators monitoring.
Analysis of the efficiency of the equipment used in production in terms of the volume of output, the adjustments and changeovers durations, as well the source and reason for the shutdown, provision of the corresponding analytical reports.
Production lines' status visualization on monitors and the ability to operate it via a control panel.
Ability to administer shopfloor personnel both at the level of the entire system (timesheet) and for individual modules (workplaces of brigade members).

SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE

CHALLENGES

Chosen tech stack:

ABSENCE OF STABLE BUDGET

LIMITED OPERATIONAL CAPACITY / TIME ALLOCATION

CORPORATE SECURITY POLICIES & RESTRICTIONS

COMPLEX BUSINESS MODEL/OPERATIONS

INCOMPLETE SPEC OF END PRODUCTS

MULTIPLE/OUTDATED SYSTEMS

POLICY-RESTRICTED TECH STACK

SOFTWARE UPDATE LIMITATIONS

PROJECT TIMELINE

Timing: 6 months

MVP: Integration of the cigarettes production lines into the common production system

Unification of the approach to collecting data from various sources, their centralization, processing, and monitoring
Algorithm of flexible system setups, starting from individual user’s settings and ending with common reports forming and their translation up to top management
The Finished Goods accounting process interconnection with the marking process control at the stage of packaging products into blocks and palettes
An integration and expansion of the Warehouses Management Systems and shopfloor logistics

Timing: 3 months

Visualization system at the filter-rods production lines. Automation of the work-orders loading and distribution by work centres with their fixed sequentiality of the execution during shifts.

Timing: 6 months

Visualization system at the cigarette production lines. Automation of the work-orders loading and distribution by work centers with their fixed sequentiality of the execution during shifts.

Timing: 6 months

Shopfloor personnel management and capacity scheduling automation

TEAM

Engineering team spent 2 month in the production facilities to learn about the production processes and coordinate with engineering team.

Analytical stage:

Project manager, Business Analyst

Scooping, wire-framing stage:

Systems Architect, Project manager, Business Analyst

Development stage:

Project manager, Business analyst, Team lead, Senior software engineer, Software engineer - 3 person, QA, AQA

Support stage:

Project manager, Team lead, QA

Client

Engineering partner

SIA

Senior JAVA developer

John Smith

Junior JavaScript developer

Clark Hynes

HR

Amelia Addams

Middle PHP developer

Elias Brown

QA

Brian Douglas Wilson

Technological stack

Linux (Centos, Red Hat, OpenSuSe), Windows 7,10

Databases

MongoDB, Oracle 19c, PostgreSQL 12

Languages/Platforms

Java 11, Kotlin, Swift, JavaScript, Python 3, BASH, Powershell

Frameworks/Libraries

Spring, Java enterprise server, React, Realm, OpenCV, Tensorflow

Servers/Cloud

Java enterprise server, Tomcat, AWS EC2, AWS S3, AWS Lambda, Amazon SageMaker

Technical environment

Jenkins, Docker, Nginx

Cloud standards:

AWS EC2, AWS S3, AWS Lambda, Amazon SageMaker

Machine Learning

Amazon SageMaker, Tensorflow, PyTorch

Integrations

SAP ERP 6.0. SCM/CRM/HRM

SQA standards

ISO 25010, ISO/IEC 12119, ISO/IEC 27000

What our clients say

LEARNING
POINTS

Complex production processes analytics (deep knowledge of manufacturing value stream chain).

Designing large-scale systems to solve complex, multi-level, and diverse business problems.

Effective interaction with corporate vendors (including engineering companies) and stakeholders located in other countries.

POSSIBLE
APPLICATIONS

Customized effective production management systems (MES level) that help not only promptly to control and manage processes, depending on the situation to make rational decisions, but also apply Lean Manufacturing methods such as continuous improvement tools based on constant tracking of trends of changes processes parameters, forming flexible analytical reports and constant progress monitoring.