Linking the factory office to the factory floor: the correct documentation control system can increase productivity and quality while reducing costs.

Manufacturing requires supporting documentation in a variety of forms. Documents often include bills of materials (BOMs), design prints and sequence of events lists, among others. Electronics manufacturing, in particular, requires extensive documentation due to the nature of the product and process. An electronics factory dedicated to a quality process might invest significantly in managing assembly instructions, inspection aids, quality specifications, preventive maintenance procedures, user manuals and other documents.

In the past, individual software systems addressed different aspects of manufacturing documentation. Tools existed for expediting the creation of documents, controlling archiving and release, and delivering documents to the factory floor through terminals. To address each of these issues, manufacturers might select computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software, a product data management system, a tracking system and a paperless viewing system, and then attempt to operate them together.

However, electronics manufacturers found that these collections of point solutions fell short of their expectations. Instead, they needed collaborative operation. They needed scalability, ease of deployment and maintenance, the ability to span factories, and systems that supported future growth into a wide array of capabilities. The manufacturers needed software that provided the integration, scope and technology used in business software systems, but specifically designed to address process issues such as manufacturing documentation rather than finance.

Recently, new software technologies and architectures merged these old point solutions into one enterprise productivity software system that meets the requirements. Documentation development, control and delivery are key functions of such a system. This first article in a series describes the business drivers for improved documentation, how enterprise productivity software helps meet the challenge, and the software technology behind it.

The Business Drivers

Competitive advantage in today's manufacturing is often delivering more value with less investment. Factory output must increase while overhead is reduced. Customers want continuously improved quality and also lower prices. These seemingly contradictory goals are difficult to reconcile. However, improving the way a company handles manufacturing documentation can play a key role in meeting these challenges.

Consider the documentation costs incurred throughout the factory office and factory floor. Manufacturing engineers spend hours on assembly aids, engineering changes and paper-based release and approval cycles. Configuration managers manually clean BOMs, organize approved vendor lists (AVLs) and approved manufacturer lists (AMLs) and maintain revision control. Quality assurance personnel maintain standard practice manuals and quality manuals, and audit floor documentation. Quality control (QC) personnel search documents for product information.

Now consider the less apparent costs of inadequate documentation. Production supervisors lose valuable production time assisting operators whose assembly aids are not adequate. If documentation lacks detail or is difficult to access, operators must be more skilled and, therefore, will require a higher labor rate.

Finally, consider an intangible cost. Existing or prospective customers often consider high-quality documentation to be a barometer of a factory's ability to produce quality products. In this case, inadequate documentation results in lost opportunity, which is likely the most serious cost of all. At many levels, the development and management of documentation are sources of manufacturing cost.

Joining Preparation and Delivery

By considering the scope and impact of manufacturing documentation on a company, two main elements of an effective process management and documentation system become apparent. The creation, archiving and revision control of documentation is one element, and the process of controlling the visibility of this information for those who need it is the other. A Web-centric software system effectively addresses both elements, delivering speed, control and visibility (Figure 1).

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This system links preparation activities in manufacturing engineering to access portals on the factory floor through electronic approval cycles, all via browsers (Figure 2). These activities also act upon the same enterprise-level database, thereby eliminating the human errors and control problems associated with systems that use files instead of databases.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Process, manufacturing, documenting and management personnel work collaboratively to prepare and release information to the factory floor. Simultaneously, factory floor operators have simplified access to dynamic documentation that helps them do their jobs effectively, while eliminating the overhead normally associated with managing such a volume of information. The Web-centric system combines the functions traditionally obtained through point solutions, joins them collaboratively while introducing approval control, and makes the resultant information accessible.

Dynamic Documentation

Following the use of a Web-centric documentation system on the factory floor is useful for considering the value such a system can add to a company (Figure 3). First, because browsers provide access to the system on the factory floor, deployment is automated and requires only reasonable PC resources, also enabling the use of thin-client terminals to reduce cost and management. Automated upgrade technology inherent to a Web-centric system also results in zero maintenance for information technology (IT) personnel.

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With such a system in production, the first benefit provided is access control. Determined by user rights, managers may have full access to their company's product documentation, but production personnel may be limited to only the documents needed for a particular job, work order or revision. Each terminal knows which documents are appropriate for that point in the factory flow, and only presents the documents pertinent to that operator at that position. Thus, a manufacturer can automatically eliminate the risk of building products to the wrong revision.

The heart of a documentation system is the document viewer (Figure 4). In enterprise productivity systems, this viewer is a Web browser, presenting multi-pane, touch-screen views of the product documentation. The main view shows multiple pages of the visual aids that the manufacturing engineer designed for that particular process. Typically, color-coded computer-aided design (CAD) images, notes, associated graphics and drawing headers are present in these documents. However, unlike paper documentation, this view includes component searching tools and inspection magnifiers to approximate the process a QC or repair technician conducts in a paper-based world, only more effectively. The viewer makes part information, markings, AVL, AML and basic BOM available easily. For box-build or very complex procedures, audio and video instructions can provide maximum assistance to the operators.

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A critical system function is storing associated documentation of any type for immediate access. For example, personnel in manufacturing engineering and quality control could construct a tree of documents and then make these documents globally accessible, associated to only specific jobs, available only at a specific machine, or provided only at a particular operator station. These documents might include the corporate quality manual, standard practice instructions, preventive maintenance procedures, user manuals, specification control drawings, or assembly and rework tutorial videos. The system provides a full range of controlled information without introducing any additional management burden.

A Web-centric system also helps manage operator suggestions and communications on the factory floor. The system includes basic messaging from line operators back to any administrative user for feedback or notification of problems.

Finally, product documentation can be sent to managers and customers via the same mechanism used by the line operators. However, the system presents a different user environment to the managers and customers, filtering the information access either more or less thoroughly depending on rights. The core benefit of a Web-accessible system remains: visibility to detailed information when and where it is required, even if this visibility is beyond the factory walls and out to customers.

The Web Services Architecture

Terms such as Web-centric, Web-enabled and collaborative are often applied to current software programs (Table 1). When a company researches manufacturing software systems, having a working knowledge of the technology is helpful so the differences between marketing and technology can be ascertained.

First, consider the variety of software programs that claim to be Web-based or Web-enabled. For example, a program that generates an HTML page or a report viewable in a browser can claim it is Web-enabled. Software that relies on Web collaboration tools from secondary vendors can also claim collaborative capability.

However, a distinct difference exists between these programs and a true Web-centric system. A Web-centric system has a core of Web-services that perform most of the "thinking" at the server level. The points of the system touched by users, the client side, are relatively simple and are divided cleanly from the server-side components.

As compared to a system that sends HTML reports or uses a third-party collaboration mechanism, a Web-centric system channels all user requests with XML, through browsers or chant applications, using the Web services on its servers. The result for end users is a system with the abilities and "feel" of a PC-based application rather than a Website, even though access is through a Web browser.

Only a Web-centric system gives the user this familiar, interactive experience, combined with enterprise deployment capability. This architecture allows the server and its databases to meet any demands and keeps the system distributed, allowing it to expand. This expansion may be a multi-factory deployment, easy third-party customization and integration, or seamless integration of more functions and modules in the future.

Architecture often makes the difference between a successful, easily maintained system and one that becomes a costly endeavor for its owner. Two software systems with identical capabilities on paper can have entirely different performances due to their architectures. Although manufacturers certainly cannot become software design experts to evaluate such systems, they must realize that architecture is objective. If the manufacturer asks some real questions, the software vendor must provide evidence of scalability and distributed design.

Conclusion

Document control and delivery, as part of an enterprise productivity solution, has introduced new opportunities for manufacturers. The correct documentation control system can increase productivity and quality while reducing costs.

The second article in this series, to be featured next month, will focus on product tracking and visibility. This article will discuss new computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) technology that provides global control and recall of work-in-process (WIP) plus diagnostic and decision-making capabilities for improving product quality.

TABLE 1: Web services architecture.

                     Client-Server Design         Web Services
                                                  (.net) Design
Deployment and
  maintenance        Manual client installation   Auto installing
Scalability          Limited by hardware          and upgrading
                                                  Unlimited
                                                  distribution
3rd party access
  to Information     Direct database access       XML-industry standard
3rd party access
  to functionality   Proprietary application      SOAP (XML)--industry
                     programming interfaces       standard
                     (APIs)
Client connection
  method             Local area network (LAN)     LAN or Web
Fault tolerance      Continuous connections       Non-continuous
                                                  connections
                     Sensitive to faults          System highly
                                                  tolerant

Jason Spera is the chief executive officer of Aegis Industrial Software Corp., Horsham, PA; e-mail: [e-mail].