Remote Monitoring

The manufacturing industry has long feared for this day to come, and it wasn’t expected to happen this way…

For many years, the manufacturing industry as a whole has adopted some significant technology that has forced jobs to become more remote; something scary and exciting for most businesses. It’s no lie that the manufacturing arena is most likely to adopt technology later than other types of industries, and for good reason. When considering working with new technology, it could potentially cost the business millions of dollars or lost product if something were to malfunction. But, companies are now being forced into the adoption of new technology as we rapidly experience a changing world with many unknowns. 

With health and safety concerns rising, more plant managers, VP’s and executives are working from the comfort (or not so comfort) of their own homes. Without their fingers on every pulse of plant operations, where do they turn? Monitoring a manufacturing environment from home seems nearly impossible; which it almost is if you want to see everything. Employing new technology is empowering organizations with advantages above the rest of the industry.  

However you proceed to follow these tips is completely up to you, but each is necessary if your vision is to have clarity into the everyday operations as well as a larger scope of production results without being on-site 24/7.

Pre-Tip: Create a Healthy Working Space

• This comes as no surprise. If you cannot have a healthy work environment, how could you achieve anything? Make sure you have a clear space wherever you go in order to achieve high efficiency and results. Check out some tips here for how to provide yourself with what you need to get things done. 

Tip Number 1: Establish Data Collection Points (Everywhere & Constantly)

• There are many ways to collect data in manufacturing operations; through automatic collection systems, custom online/ offline forms, and even pen and paper. Many organizations request data collection points in human resources, finance, sales and marketing, quality, food & human safety, production, shipping and more (depending on your process) to be able to cross reference and keep on top of the latest manufacturing data points. Data points are important so that you are notified and aware of things that may be out of process control limits or in critical condition, for example. Now that you have these points everywhere, you need an efficient RDDS. 

Tip Number 2: Create a Quick, Reliable, & Efficient Reporting System

• What’s an RDDS? We call it a Rapid Data Delivery System. How to set up RDD  (Rapid Data Delivery) remotely: there are a few ways you can deliver information within a production environment. Some consist of shared/ online data sheets, manual email, cloud computing systems (custom built), or production monitoring systems. There are a few issues with these traditional systems that include: data that is delivered later and out of date/ time, cost of maintaining or building custom solutions, and the time or effort it takes to monitor production data coming straight from the system, which becomes redundant and unfiltered. There’s not much that you can do to customize what you want to see and when you want to be notified. All are solutions, just not very rapid unless you are able to quickly filter and choose what information you want to see. See solutions for RDD here. 

Tip Number 3: Keep Close Communication with Your Team

• This tip is fairly obvious for many reasons and we believe it should be carried out on a daily basis whether you are monitoring remotely or not. You may use email, phone, communicate through a production system or a corporate communication system; the importance is to be connected to the right people at the right time. It’s important to stay connected to your team so that when rapid data is being delivered, there can be steps for implementation of preventive and corrective actions if need be. To make it as easy as possible for your team, you should strive to create communication systems that are integrated within data delivery and reporting systems for maximized efficiency. 

Tip Number 4: Deliver Action Steps for Improvement

• Previously noted, actions can consist of preventive or corrective actions among others to help improve the safety and production of your operation. But, how are they formulated and delivered? All the information being gathered has to be analyzed in a sort in order to deliver actionable tasks back to your operation; analyzed in a way that provides value to the operation and people. The collection and delivery of data and communication between teams plays a vital role for the larger picture of being able to monitor and implement actions remotely. The key to delivering actionable steps is to ensure that all the previous steps are in an environment that is inclusive. Having everything in one central location will help keep your team engaged and prepared with or without your physical presence. 

If we are learning one thing this year, it’s to be flexible, be adaptable, and to be in many places at once it seems like. With these simple, but effective steps, organizations have been able to cut costs, improve efficiencies, and become a more profitable operation despite the changes that are having to be made. To learn more about how to implement these steps, visit us here or get in touch with us to learn what other manufacturing operations are doing to adapt to the constant changes happening now.