Influent Enterprise: A universal approach to data
AMADA created Influent Enterprise so that customers could transition the strengths of Influent Monitor to a more tailored solution. The foundation of the system remains the same: collect data, measure, analyze the results, detect problems, solve, create and test a solution, and manage the entirety. Whereas Monitor works only with AMADA equipment and does not interface with other software environments, Enterprise works with any equipment and works well with other software.
The dashboards, reports, and management capabilities of Monitor may be all some companies need. However, there are valid reasons to upgrade to Enterprise. First, you can bring many more machine brands and machine ages into the equation. You will derive a wealth of information from these other machines, and you can access it all in one place.
Second, Influent Enteprrise normalizes data from many different sources. One of the advantages of this is that the data can be shared among many platforms. One example is switching all length measurements to millimeters Imperial measurements. Third, you can bring the machine-generated data into the office and save it and manipulate it with common tools you already know.
For the shop manager who would like to consider the strengths that Influent Enterprise can bring to the company, there are many. You will continue to get ROI from your initial investment in Monitor. However, Enterprise brings so many more capabilities, some because of the open nature of the platform, some because of the ability to customize with thresholds, KPIs, even display of custom dashboards.
In the information world, less is not more
The following valuable and technically expansive features are inherent in Enterprise:
- Universal data collection. Enterprise gives you the power to cross over divisions of data, and collect and keep historical records of data from all over your shop floor, including some areas you didn’t think possible.
- Bidirectional ERP/MRP/MES integration with synchronization. As you share the shop information across your system(s), not only will it be in a format useful to both sides of the data stream, but it will synchronize automatically.
- Monitor any equipment and process on your floor. Influent’s inherently on-premises approach is an effective data security measure. With Enterprise you can still keep that approach while building a data environment that includes just about anything you have in your shop—and more.
- Custom rules-based machine target thresholds. You can preset targets for each machine and create rules based on jobs, materials, utilization, shifts, etc. Examples of these include greenlight time or completions.
- Enhanced, accurate costing. This is a strength that affects shop floor managers, accounting, estimating, even sales. No matter if a job calls for multiple sheets or is part of another job’s nest, you can get very granular with your costing efforts.
- Custom rules-based intelligent notification. Depending on an occurrence or on the state of a machine, a notification will be sent. The type of notification, and to whom, and the frequency of repeats, and much more, are up to you.
- Work progress and location tracking. Your salespeople get this question a lot: “Where is my job?” Now they (and you, and everyone who needs to know) will know exactly where the job is, and what progress has been made.
- Real-time schedule display. “When?” is a universal question, it seems. Now you will know, in real time. Influent Enterprise gives you the real data on how your business is remaining on schedule, falling behind, or moving ahead of plan.
- Custom dashboards. Influent Enterprise allows you to decide what to display. If you have specific KPIs that are related to uptime, throughput, or utilization, Influent Enterprise has you covered.
Because you will include data from a variety of sources, there is something of a hierarchy of data amounts, values, and availability. In descending order of robustness and full data access: 1) AMADA machines with AMNC PC, 3i, and 4ie software give the most information, followed by 2) recent machines from other vendors that use standard protocols for communications, the systems with better developed communication are more easily integrated; and 3) legacy equipment that was designed and made before the onslaught of data on the shop floor. Most of these latter machines will yield only greenlight time and completions or even strokes.
Even standalone locations in a shop like a welding cell will offer information as a welder checks in an out on jobs at an area computer or a work cell-specific iPad.
As we look at a few of the features of Influent Enterprise, remember that with Enterprise we are working with a data set that includes the entirety of a shop.
On-time delivery
One key metric for a fabrication company or an OEM doing fabrication is on-time delivery. This is an interesting metric because it may tie into workload/backlog—and it may not. Either way you will get the information you need to see if this is a “too busy” problem or an “under-producing” problem.
With Influent Enterprise, you can drill down into the work orders. Looking at the On-Time Delivery report, we see immediately that there are 158 jobs not completed, representing a 47% missed due date percentage. On average, the jobs are one day late. You can also get information on jobs that are about to be late; you can take action to try get them out the door on time.
Below the summary information is a histogram of total orders in progress, with a shaded area indicating how many jobs were overdue on a particular date. Below that individual work orders from the past month with date, work order, and client. This is valuable for the shop manager, the individual machine operators, as well as customer service people and salespeople. As you drill further into this information, you will find out the current job location, the delay’s location (or locations if there were more than one).
Another way to look at your shop’s timeliness or likelihood of delivering on promises is to look at the Actual vs. Estimate report. As in the screen below, you can look at the Actual vs. Estimate performance by operation type (e.g. inspection, painting, punching).
Some operations have multiple work centers, and you can drill down into that information. You can contrast two similar work centers with similar work but different workers. This information can help you manage production staff. That same information can increase your quotation accuracy. The way this works is Influent contrasts its own actual time it recorded vs. the estimated time obtained from the ERP system.
There is an art to scheduling. It is an even finer art to maintain a flexible schedule—too flexible means no schedule, and too schedule-driven means no flexibility. Influent will help you track deviations to the schedule by summarizing the top reasons for the deviation as well as the top deviation work centers.
The operators cannot simply change the schedule, though. They are prompted for details if they try to do work out of order. That information is collected and analyzed so that the shop manager understands where schedule deviations are taking place and what is causing them.
AMADA working for you
Whereas part of the appeal of Influent is the powerful way it performs its duties, with Enterprise the gains are exponential because it is the central link to all your company’s manufacturing data. Getting the system to perform is not an easy task nor is it something that most fabrication firms tackle on a regular basis and develop the skills to do.
AMADA Professional Services starts the process with a one-hour consultation that is an IIoT readiness assessment. After doing the assessment, AMADA Professional Services returns to you with a readiness and roadmap report. This information gives the client a clear picture of what it takes to move to Influent Enterprise (including the ERP/MRP integration).
AMADA identifies pain points, and uses custom problem-solving recommendations based on lean techniques and Six Sigma tools. Your custom solution, based on the information derived in the initial assessment, will turn separate data repositories into a meta-system that links business to production for good.