Manufacturing Execution System for BAT

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.

Project goals

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.

Business goals:

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

Technical goals:

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).

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).

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SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE

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

Constructivo

Soft-Industry has demonstrated a strong trustworthiness with the goals of our company. We have been working with them since the end of 2001 reducing our IT budget to 80% and increasing our time responsiveness to 95%. In our web business, time is very critical. Over 5,000 users in South America are accessing, searching, creating and reading data on our web tool, maintained by Soft-Industry. Several projects with different requirements are requested every month, and Soft-Industry team has an extraordinary commitment with our company. Construtivo.com recommends Soft-Industry as a contractor for software development projects outsourcing and as a reliable and qualified IT partner.

EMSI Burning Glass

Cooperation between EMSI Burning Glass (formerly Burning Glass Technologies) and Soft Industry Alliance has started 7 years ago, when SIA has been selected as a technical partner to strengthen our internal development teams on several projects. As our cooperation progressed, we’ve expanded it to an additional set of projects. Through many years of our partnership, Soft Industry Alliance engineers were able to complete most of their tasks successfully, which helped us to achieve our business goals. Another advantage is their adaptability to our processes and working hours. SIA cooperates successfully with our offices in US, Europe and India. We highly appreciate our productive business relationship and happy to continue working together!

British American Tobacco

We set tasks for SIA to expand and renew the QIS-X system – a new scheme and new calculations of the number of quality, extensions for THP products, tobacco chemistry and safety indicators in cigarette smoke.It has always been a pleasure to cooperate with the SIA team as we worked to expand QIS-X. The most valuable experience for me is the cooperation on the data transfer unit of safety and chemistry indicators of THP for the calculation of the quality indicator. I am grateful to SIA for its prompt attention, desire to understand the problem, ability to work in a team, effective solutions and their quality implementation.

Code-IT

We started to work with Soft industry Alliance when we needed developers for our project strongly. SIA team solved all tasks in time and helped us to reach our business goals. All company employees are very professional and loyal, very easy to work with, and very dedicated to completing all work on time with high quality. They are open and honest, it’s valued.

Nova Solutions LLC

I want to share my experience of cooperation with Soft Industry Alliance. They provide highly qualified technicians within the stipulated time at prices lower than specialists from Europe/USA of a similar level. The company is flexible in making decisions, the cooperation is always comfortable because you can expect to find a win-win solution. They are flexible in communication, their employees are loyal, and they have quite strong soft skills, and are also ready to back up colleagues in the course of completing tasks. Soft Industry Alliance is ready to work in cooperation with other companies to help clients achieve their business goals and be proactive towards the contractor to solve the tasks. And they continued to work even in wartime, keeping the team as productive as possible.

Comocom GmbH

We appreciate Soft Industry as a reliable and trustful partner, we appreciate the flexibility to find solutions to any arising issues. As an ISO-certified company Soft Industry has a huge advantage when having to choose what fits that security requirements.