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Tuesday, 15 April 2014

How Do You Define Your Manufacturing Automation Solution - In All Its Details

"The devil is in the details" is a saying that you may have heard before. This saying is appropriately applied to the process of defining a manufacturing automation solution. This saying can be applied all the way from the broad statement like, "We need to automate our assembly of products", all the way down to the smallest part of the assembly process. I guess since there is such a great deal of effort involved in the assembling of all the details that make up the process that you want to automate, the devil is present in the gathering. But actually this collection of details does not have to be difficult, if it is done in a practical and realistic way.
One of the first steps you need to take in starting the process of gathering the details of an automation solution is to define the quality specifications for the product that will be manufactured by automation. You need to know all the specific dimensions of the product. This should include all the tolerances that can be allowed in the creation of the product. These kinds of measurements will help to define the areas of automation are the most critical, if you don't already know what they are. If there are sub-assemblies that are part of the product assembly make sure that you have well noted tolerances for these critical interfaces in the product. As we have discussed earlier it is important to have different viewpoints from your company involved in the input of the details that support the addition of an automation solution. It has been determined that having several viewpoints involved will give you a better chance of gathering all the details that are important.
Another area of detail is that of the minimum throughput that will be required of the automation. You will need to determine how much production can be expected from an automation scenario, and whether this rate is one that can be tolerated by the company and your customers. You will need to know what the minimum production rate is for each work station or work cell. Once that is known you must decide if the production created by the slowest part of the automation process is at a rate that all parties can accept.
If you place the automation into an existing facility, you will need determine the amount of space that can be carved out to accommodate it. In reviewing the space requirement be sure to investigate the need for special preparations for the automation. Is there a need for foundation reinforcement? Is there a need for additional wiring in support of automation? Such questions should be discovered at this time in the process so that answers can give input to the budget and other considerations later. The process of determining space requirements should include the details of acceptable configuration. The automation solution must have a configuration that has a positive impact on the other areas of plant operations. For instance, the inventory-in-process that may be generated by the new automation cannot negatively impact such areas for existing production.
You are the expert when it comes to the manufacture of your products. Gathering the details about how this manufacturing occurs will give you a well-defined list of instructions that you can pass to an automation provider. The more detail that you define in this early process of automation, the easier it will be to tell the provider what your automation requirements are. Defining as many of your needs (requirements) as possible before you have a conversation with a provider is a good early objective. You may discover that once you do have a conversation with a provider about your list of automation needs, the expertise of the provider, provided they are well experienced, will add to your list. Knowing this in advance should not keep you from developing a well-rounded list of what you require, based on your product knowledge.
The list of your requirements for automation should probably contain some reasoning about why you do manufacturing the way you do it. It is fine if you determine that some of your current processes are performed because "that is the way we always did it". Having automation put into your process will help to eliminate the traditional methods that are not contributing in a positive way to your production. You can be assured that the provider will be able to give you good reasons why automation will be expected to perform each task that it is expected to do.

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