Your New Competitive Advantage.

In CNC machining, the reality is that metal meeting metal results in tool wear. Metal cutting, grinding, drilling, boring, and other tasks are all part of machining. And as these activities are all “metal-on-metal,” at some point, something must give. This "give" comes in the form of tool wear, where regular operation means that tools will lose surface, sharpness, and temper over time. If equipment and processes are monitored and optimized, this wear is gradual and...

Over the last decade, digital transformation has accelerated among all industries. This revolution of new technologies has altered traditional manufacturing and the business landscape across the globe and is poised to accelerate even more. As recently as 2018, manufacturing companies transformed digitally accounted for $13.5 trillion of global GDP. But it is estimated that by 2023, this number will have risen to encompass $53.3 trillion of global GDP. In this article, we...

Manually managing and tracking production is beginning to become a habit of the past. Manufacturers are switching to a new approach of executing workflows, communicating, record-keeping, and scheduling; one that is driven by digital technology: Paperless Manufacturing. This technology consists primarily of advanced cloud-based software, AI, machine learning algorithms, and advanced analytics that make paper-based systems obsolete. Acting as paperless manufacturing software,...

Knowing how to solve production issues quickly and efficiently is a skill all manufacturing managers should possess. Though there are many strategies that exist to identify and fix problems, the starting point for eliminating the most severe shop floor issues is having an infrastructure in place to support the automated collection and standardization of production data. With accurate, real-time data, managers can identify what problems are occurring, the root cause of the...

Quality is perhaps best understood and enforced in high precision component industries such as aerospace and defense, as well as medical device manufacturing. With that said, all manufacturers take into consideration defects, rework, scrap, and their associated costs. On the forefront of quality metrics, First Pass Yield is a helpful KPI to monitor as it answers a key question for managers: How effective are we at manufacturing quality parts? What is First Pass Yield? First...

What is Machine Operator Efficiency? Machine Operator Efficiency, or MOE, measures the performance of industrial machinery operators. Represented in the form of a percentage, it takes into consideration time, parts created, and part quality to effectively measure shop floor employee performance. Shop floor supervisors and plant managers can use MOE to evaluate the performance of their employees, just as they would use Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) to evaluate...

Customizing Operator Dashboards With the latest MachineMetrics feature release, manufacturers can now customize the tabs that appear on the Operator Dashboard and adjust the order in which the tabs appear. There are several reasons why operators and managers may choose to customize the tabs on Operator Dashboards: Remove Distractions: Not interested in seeing the Alarms or Cycle Time tab on the Operator Dashboard? Interested in only seeing Utilization metrics? Not a problem;...

Manufacturing industry production software has been around for many decades. As it has evolved, it has revolutionized production processes across different industries. And it is used in process, discrete, and mixed-mode production to manage, track, and improve production. Companies that use manufacturing software can grow their businesses by enabling greater control of processes and resources to drive optimal output. These manufacturers can better control and manage costs...

The most significant contributor to inefficiency in a production environment is equipment downtime. To manage this issue, manufacturing companies use downtime tracking software to categorize types of equipment downtime and develop procedures and strategies to reduce or eliminate the problem. In today’s high-speed and hyper-competitive market, manufacturers need every advantage they can to maintain market share. And software is a critical component of those strategies. What...

With the arrival of Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), a digital transformation is currently underway. The manufacturing industry is beginning to use analytics driven by real-time production data, not only to make better, faster decisions, but also to enable automation across the organization. Equipment connected through sensors and edge devices feeds massive volumes of data to cloud-based analytics platforms that can analyze and understand data...