Historically for Scholle IPN, there have been both local production and global IT challenges with managing such a complex and high-output production process:
Local Site Production Challenges
Scholle IPN found themselves in a position that is typical of many multi-site organizations with a global footprint. The management of their data was disparate and hundreds of data islands have emerged.
At each local site, line operators were manually calculating asset performance and quality metrics. When rolling these values up, the global team also found that each local site calculated these metrics slightly differently creating even further inconsistencies. If Overall Equipment Effectiveness metrics were not always known or available for each site/asset. Finally, for sites that did have an automated system, they were either homegrown or of varying software platforms. So, cross-site performance comparisons were out of the question and thus, collaborative idea sharing was often rejected, delaying improvements and limiting their ability of Just-in-Time (JIT) or production sharing proposals.
Traditionally, line staff manually calculated shift metrics at the end of an order or shift with clipboards and paper, again delaying performance communication and being subject to human error. Scholle IPN collects large amount of data. Volumes of data measurements per product could range somewhere between 85 and 140 data points. Some of the larger SPC machines, such as their finishing assets, now have the capability to register up to 1500+ process points!
The Continuous Improvement (CI) Team within Scholle IPN identified a business need to replace the culture of local individualism with global collaboration, while still supporting certain local autonomous needs.