Traditionally, manufacturing is categorized by two methods: process and discrete. Many differences exist, but most can be grouped into two areas: those derived from material issues and those derived from production issues.
Process materials are different than discrete materials. Process materials are powder, liquids or gases; they must be confined, and they are more difficult to accurately measure. Process materials are close to their natural sources (farms, mines, etc.) and, therefore, are of inconsistent quality. Inconsistent quality means extensive quality procedures, segregation (lot control), restriction of use (for example, this lot is okay for one customer but not another), and usually the inclusion of quality attributes as part of their inventory definition. Process materials vary with time. They get better, they get worse, and they change their identity.
Production issues give us the simplest definition of process manufacturing. Specifically, once you produce your finished product, you cannot distill it back to its basic ingredients. Have you ever attempted to return orange juice back to its original water, sugar, sodium, and, of course, oranges or extract the pigments out of paint? However, you can disassemble a car back to its tires, spark plugs, carburetor, and engine block. There are similar components in process and discrete manufacturing: ingredients versus parts; formulas versus bill of materials; several units of measure (i.e., pounds, ounces, and liters) versus EA (each).
There are, however, subtle differences. Process manufacturing is scalable. For example, if the formula calls for a 1,000 pounds of oranges but you only have 500 pounds, you can still make orange juice, just not as much. If you only have three tires, you are going to have wait for the fourth tire before the car can start rolling off the production line. In process, you tend make product in bulk or batches as in a vat of coke or a 500-gallon tanks of solvent and then pack it off to fulfill customer orders. On the other hand, in discrete manufacturing you would expect to see one computer at a time coming down the production line.
For a quick refresher on process manufacturing, peruse the articles, Process Manufacturing: A Primer or What Makes Process Process.
The remainder of this article focuses on process manufacturing. However, to say process manufacturing functions are the same in all industries is tantamount to saying that a Ferrari and a Ford truck are simply means of getting from point A to point B. Just as you would not use a Ferrari to haul lumber, aspects of process manufacturing cannot be applied equally and with the same importance to all industries. This article looks at the unique requirements of process manufacturing in three industries: food and beverage, chemical, and a hybrid industry, textiles. One way or another, these requirements must be satisfied. If a software vendor can provide this satisfaction, your organization's anxiety level concerning the implementation of enterprise-wide systems can be significantly reduced.
If you are not in these industries, you can stop reading � No, wait! Perhaps understanding how a particular requirement or aspect of process manufacturing relates to one of these industries may give you better understanding or insight on how it can be applied in your company. Whew! Thought that I had lost you! Glad you're back.
Editor's Note: For the purpose of this article, process and continuous-flow manufacturing are treated as synonymous. Continuous-flow manufacturing is the eradication of product stagnation in and between processes. Once a product has entered the manufacturing process, it moves on without having to be stored. Special considerations, such as one-piece-at-a-time production and multi-process handling for establishing a continuous-flow operation, will not be addressed in this article.
A new wrinkle that has been added to process manufacturing by the chemical industry is the introduction of hazardous material. As you would expect, the use of hazardous materials is closely regulated and must be reported. This creates two conditions that can be greatly simplified by software. First, when creating a new formula or modifying an existing one, the formula must be analyzed for the presence of hazardous materials. This check requires a continuously updated and current list of regulated materials that are considered hazardous. Also required is the percentage of these materials relative to the other ingredients.
Secondly, the reporting of hazardous materials must comply with a specific format, namely material safety data sheets (MSDS). These sheets will usually accompany the customer's bill of lading (BOL) and, therefore, must be integrated with the billing process. While copies of MSDS can be kept on file and manually matched with the BOL, most companies will not want to risk non-compliance and would rather seek an automated remedy. Likewise, companies who like to "live on the edge" will rely on manual procedures to determine when a formula and product requires an updated MSDS. More prudent companies, however, will seek to have update notification incorporated in their enterprise-wide software and automatically generated new MSDS when needed.
The programming of hazardous material compliance is not trivial when you consider that it involves list processing and matching, percent of total analysis, scheduling, and formatting. While there are bolt-on solutions because of the required tight integration, it is hard to argue against an enterprise-wide software solution that includes this functionality straight out of the box. Depending on how important formula analysis and MSDS reporting are to your organization, the inclusion of this functionality in a vendor's software offering could be a deal breaker or, at the very least, a tie breaker.
In many chemical companies, but particularly in specialty chemical companies, every order represents a new product. For example, tweak an existing formula or replace this chemical ingredient with that chemical ingredient. This places three demands on the functioning of the software. First, since the resulting chemical is being produced for the first time, a quote would normally be required. As a consequent, the software needs to have the ability to easily convert prospective quotes into firm orders and trigger an event in the production schedule.
Secondly, since new formulas will be needed, the maintenance and management of formulas need to be streamlined and responsive to customer inquiries, possibly while the customer is still on the phone. Templating would be a useful tool in this regard. You start with an existing formula as a template for the new formula and make ingredient changes as warranted. Finally, to compliment the templating concept, and because many chemical properties are interchangeable, a suggested ingredient substitution would facilitate the production process. Automated or suggestive ingredient substitution could allow your company to fulfill customer orders that otherwise have to be abandoned or, at best, delayed.
Producing chemicals typically involves all of the three common states of ingredients, namely solids, liquids, and gases. From a formula and mixing perspective, this necessitates a very robust unit of measure (UOM) conversion engine. Whether the formula requires conversion of US measurements to metric or imperial measurements, liquids to solids, or gases to liquids, such conversions should be transparent to the production of the finished goods. Furthermore, depending on the unique requirements of your company, software that allows the entry of free form conversion tables can be extremely useful.
Process materials are different than discrete materials. Process materials are powder, liquids or gases; they must be confined, and they are more difficult to accurately measure. Process materials are close to their natural sources (farms, mines, etc.) and, therefore, are of inconsistent quality. Inconsistent quality means extensive quality procedures, segregation (lot control), restriction of use (for example, this lot is okay for one customer but not another), and usually the inclusion of quality attributes as part of their inventory definition. Process materials vary with time. They get better, they get worse, and they change their identity.
Production issues give us the simplest definition of process manufacturing. Specifically, once you produce your finished product, you cannot distill it back to its basic ingredients. Have you ever attempted to return orange juice back to its original water, sugar, sodium, and, of course, oranges or extract the pigments out of paint? However, you can disassemble a car back to its tires, spark plugs, carburetor, and engine block. There are similar components in process and discrete manufacturing: ingredients versus parts; formulas versus bill of materials; several units of measure (i.e., pounds, ounces, and liters) versus EA (each).
There are, however, subtle differences. Process manufacturing is scalable. For example, if the formula calls for a 1,000 pounds of oranges but you only have 500 pounds, you can still make orange juice, just not as much. If you only have three tires, you are going to have wait for the fourth tire before the car can start rolling off the production line. In process, you tend make product in bulk or batches as in a vat of coke or a 500-gallon tanks of solvent and then pack it off to fulfill customer orders. On the other hand, in discrete manufacturing you would expect to see one computer at a time coming down the production line.
For a quick refresher on process manufacturing, peruse the articles, Process Manufacturing: A Primer or What Makes Process Process.
The remainder of this article focuses on process manufacturing. However, to say process manufacturing functions are the same in all industries is tantamount to saying that a Ferrari and a Ford truck are simply means of getting from point A to point B. Just as you would not use a Ferrari to haul lumber, aspects of process manufacturing cannot be applied equally and with the same importance to all industries. This article looks at the unique requirements of process manufacturing in three industries: food and beverage, chemical, and a hybrid industry, textiles. One way or another, these requirements must be satisfied. If a software vendor can provide this satisfaction, your organization's anxiety level concerning the implementation of enterprise-wide systems can be significantly reduced.
If you are not in these industries, you can stop reading � No, wait! Perhaps understanding how a particular requirement or aspect of process manufacturing relates to one of these industries may give you better understanding or insight on how it can be applied in your company. Whew! Thought that I had lost you! Glad you're back.
Editor's Note: For the purpose of this article, process and continuous-flow manufacturing are treated as synonymous. Continuous-flow manufacturing is the eradication of product stagnation in and between processes. Once a product has entered the manufacturing process, it moves on without having to be stored. Special considerations, such as one-piece-at-a-time production and multi-process handling for establishing a continuous-flow operation, will not be addressed in this article.
A new wrinkle that has been added to process manufacturing by the chemical industry is the introduction of hazardous material. As you would expect, the use of hazardous materials is closely regulated and must be reported. This creates two conditions that can be greatly simplified by software. First, when creating a new formula or modifying an existing one, the formula must be analyzed for the presence of hazardous materials. This check requires a continuously updated and current list of regulated materials that are considered hazardous. Also required is the percentage of these materials relative to the other ingredients.
Secondly, the reporting of hazardous materials must comply with a specific format, namely material safety data sheets (MSDS). These sheets will usually accompany the customer's bill of lading (BOL) and, therefore, must be integrated with the billing process. While copies of MSDS can be kept on file and manually matched with the BOL, most companies will not want to risk non-compliance and would rather seek an automated remedy. Likewise, companies who like to "live on the edge" will rely on manual procedures to determine when a formula and product requires an updated MSDS. More prudent companies, however, will seek to have update notification incorporated in their enterprise-wide software and automatically generated new MSDS when needed.
The programming of hazardous material compliance is not trivial when you consider that it involves list processing and matching, percent of total analysis, scheduling, and formatting. While there are bolt-on solutions because of the required tight integration, it is hard to argue against an enterprise-wide software solution that includes this functionality straight out of the box. Depending on how important formula analysis and MSDS reporting are to your organization, the inclusion of this functionality in a vendor's software offering could be a deal breaker or, at the very least, a tie breaker.
In many chemical companies, but particularly in specialty chemical companies, every order represents a new product. For example, tweak an existing formula or replace this chemical ingredient with that chemical ingredient. This places three demands on the functioning of the software. First, since the resulting chemical is being produced for the first time, a quote would normally be required. As a consequent, the software needs to have the ability to easily convert prospective quotes into firm orders and trigger an event in the production schedule.
Secondly, since new formulas will be needed, the maintenance and management of formulas need to be streamlined and responsive to customer inquiries, possibly while the customer is still on the phone. Templating would be a useful tool in this regard. You start with an existing formula as a template for the new formula and make ingredient changes as warranted. Finally, to compliment the templating concept, and because many chemical properties are interchangeable, a suggested ingredient substitution would facilitate the production process. Automated or suggestive ingredient substitution could allow your company to fulfill customer orders that otherwise have to be abandoned or, at best, delayed.
Producing chemicals typically involves all of the three common states of ingredients, namely solids, liquids, and gases. From a formula and mixing perspective, this necessitates a very robust unit of measure (UOM) conversion engine. Whether the formula requires conversion of US measurements to metric or imperial measurements, liquids to solids, or gases to liquids, such conversions should be transparent to the production of the finished goods. Furthermore, depending on the unique requirements of your company, software that allows the entry of free form conversion tables can be extremely useful.
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