Across several blogs we have explained the many things our SPMS production management system is capable of. We think the time has come to disclose exactly how it all works and how SPMS can be tailored to your individual wishes and requirements. The best way to do this is by means of a specific project that we conducted in a factory abroad recently.
Center of your industrial environment
SPMS has been designed and engineered based on fifty years of process experience and acts as the center of any industrial environment. The SPMS server gathers information from different disciplines, such as:
- Project information
- Shift information
- Machine information
- Product information
- Maintenance information
- HSE information
Merged in a smart way
The actual source of the information can be different for each discipline and is supplier-independent. The true strength of SPMS is that it not only retrieves all information from different systems, but cleverly merges or links them together while providing the right context. In the factory involved we used the following sources of information, among others:
- Machine information, via a PLC connection
- Product registration, via QR scanning
- Quality reports from external devices, via CSV (Comma-Separated Values) , XML and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
- Visual information, via Video AVI, images and live streams from various sections in factories
- Manual information, e.g. additional explanation of certain events or products through input from operators, creating project information and adding product information.
Presenting information
After we had stored all the information in a structured way and connected it to each other, the obtained information had to be presented. For this we used the following channels:
- Web interface with various graphs, tables and messages.
- Excel reporting based on production, delay analysis and production forecast reporting.
- Database , i.e. disclosing the database tables containing production information. This can also be used by the customer to do their own analyses.
- Dashboard in production environment with, among other things, real-time information across factories, reports whether a crew needs technical support and whether, for example, a production error has been detected.
Globally accessible
So, SPMS is basically standardized software for each production environment that can be linked to the individual production lines via a piece of custom configuration. To make the information accessible worldwide and 24/7, even if the plant is temporarily offline, the SPMS web interface is made available via a secure routing system and firewall. For this purpose, the data is synchronized with a data center in Amsterdam. Furthermore, SPMS can also send information, allowing for example machine settings to be changed automatically when a product change takes place. However, this is only possible by logging in locally. Finally, because the customer in question has multiple factories, SPMS can be used to benchmark performance between them.
Do you think letting SPMS do most of the thinking for you, with a little help from Selmers, is a great idea? Just call your sales contact or send an email to sales@selmers.com
