Think...
The method we use is to take the time up front to map out the entire operational process from Receiving through Shipping and everywhere in-between. This discovery process is vital to understanding where human interaction occurs, where data is read or recorded, and most importantly, where there is redundant data causing waste in information flow. Interruptions in the flow of data introduce all kinds of challenges in today’s market where flexibility is becoming key and maintaining a right-sized workforce that has the expertise to keep your operation going is harder than ever. How long does it take to train new employees on the intricacies of your system? How long are you able to retain those employees on average? Questions such as these can drive the importance of having a simple process that is easy to train on and that is standard across your organization. This is where you will see the true value in spending the time up front to work through these challenges. Proper designs come from putting in the up front effort so you see the gains throughout the process and have a solid foundation to improve upon.
Build...
What we try to do here is build out the correct solution for your organization. That doesn’t mean it’s always a custom solution, there are some options that come “out of the box” on different platforms that could apply, but more often than not they can’t grow with your business. Having a custom solution doesn’t mean that it’s a complex solution, or an expensive solution. Usually the simplest solution is the best solution, and that is the mindset we go into each design with. We build the simplest solution for your unique situation, and that will include an eye towards scalability, ease of use and ease of support. We will also challenge parts of your process that could be simplified with the application of technology. We want to understand what your vision is for your business 15 years down the road, not just what the project you are doing today is.
Improve...
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is no longer a valid argument. Just because something isn’t outright broken doesn’t mean it’s not costing you money. Consider having a local HMI collect data from a piece of equipment that you want to track and that HMI isn’t on the network. You have to pay someone to walk down to that piece of equipment, pull the data out of that HMI before it runs out of memory, bring it back to their laptop and convert it into a usable format, then transfer it into a spreadsheet or maybe it’s loaded into a database for historical viewing. How much money does that cost? Not just in paying that person to go through those steps, but loss in quality of data and loss in the time it takes to view and respond to the finalized data? You should have the information at your fingertips alerting you to variances real-time, not waiting a day or a week to see that something was already wrong. We want to help identify and improve the systems you already have in place, get you out of running your business in spreadsheets and having your systems work for you, not the other way around.