Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Save A Bundle With Real-Time Shop Floor Automation Software

The uniPaaS application platform is ideally suited to needs related to shop floor manufacturing. I had the opportunity to witness apparel manufacturing software with my own eyes on the floor of an apparel manufacturing facility in the vicinity of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I saw the eFactory real-time manufacturing system by Informaplus automate bundle tracking processes that are integral to the way apparel manufacturers route work-in-process.

eFactory™ is a real-time apparel manufacturing data collection system that collects and reacts to shop floor information during production. The system constantly keeps track of who is doing what, where, when and for how long. And... how long it should be taking. This data is captured using factory terminals, located near each operator on the factory floor. Even while the data is being captured and reacted to, the system produces up-to-the-minute, meaningful reports about production that you can react to, to increase your revenue and productivity. The system covers all shop floor activities from work in process issuance to finished goods registration including gross payroll, employee efficiency and work in process.

The eFactory system is based on more than two decades of domain expertise and research and development in the Garment Industry. eFactory’s comprehensive capabilities exceed requirements, and yet Informaplus also has the ability to customize the system to meet specific interface or functional requirements in particular manufacturing processes.

The eFactory system offers several modules, including a Master Tables Module, Cutting Module, Bar-coded Cards Module , Real-time Module, Change of Standards Module , Gross Payroll Module , Inquiries & Reports Module , Productivity Module, Work in process tracking Module, and Shop Floor Module. Each of these modules controls specific functions that enable customers to boost productivity in the areas that are most important to their manufacturing process.

It was easy-to-see the benefits of what was happening on two levels: from the end user perspective and from the vantage point of the software developer. For the end user, bundle ticket printing is automated, employee time tracking is automated, and costs are reduced by having real-time visibility of inventory and work-in-process. At the same time employees are happy because of the accuracy and immediacy of productivity related feedback and management is thrilled to be able to see the bottlenecks and problems in the manufacturing process.

Software developers prefer uniPaaS as an application platform and development tool for shop floor manufacturing applications because of its strength in data-centric business application development, easy ability to connect multiple data entry and tracking stations and robust reliability. In fact, the eFactory system has been implemented with as many as 1500 real-time data input points and no latency problems.

Developers have told me that prior to uniPaaS, the development and implementation of new business applications became increasingly complex and required increasingly varied skills and extended testing, driving costs up. At the same time, reduced software budgets constrained innovation. With uniPaaS, capabilities are provided for application integration and composite application capabilities. uniPaaS reduces development challenges by encoding business functionality as metadata. Existing developers can quickly become familiar with such platforms thanks to the abstraction of technology inherent to uniPaaS.

So if you’re looking to save a bundle on apparel manufacturing software, consider InformaPlus – and if you’re just looking for a better way to build shop floor applications, consider uniPaaS. For more information on the entire suite of applications and solutions available from InformaPlus, please contact Sylvain Raymond at (514) 956-5566. Or email eFactory@informaplus.com or visit Informaplus.com.

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