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NOVEMBER 2023 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 55 ing it impossible to give up the old practices of manual checks and balances that had been put into place. In today's Smart factory, design data is avail- able in an intelligent single-file standard for- mat, such as IPC-2581, rather than as a copy of an output data stream to a plotter. e BOM data is available through soware APIs, rather than as a translation of a format destined for a dot-matrix printer. e creation of the dig- ital product model is now automated, ready for immediate application using composable interfaces for work instructions and machine data. Removing the potential for mistakes and eliminating needlessly repetitive workload allows engineers to embrace agility and make decisions dynamically to select the best con- figurations for the job based on live availabil- ity, capability, through-rates, and quality per- formance. Manufacturing engineering now becomes dynamic and exciting, using soware tools that allow creativity without the stresses and tedium of manual data manipulation and processing. Production Management e production management effort once consisted predominantly of a series of meet- ings, each with a siloed group within manufac- turing, including quality, materials, line super- vision, and planning. Each group brought dif- ferent, yet conflicting views and goals that confused and delayed management decisions that would directly affect overall factory per- formance. Ironically, the more information management sought out to make decisions, the more time lost by production operators because they had to record everything they did. is created a negative spiral of motiva- tion all around. In the modern, Smart factory, operational information comes automatically in two parts. Using soware interfaces, the data collection from both machines and human operations improves timeliness, quality, detail, and consis- tency. e important, but oen overlooked sec- ond step, is the contextualization of that data to build a meaningful visibility of performance, based on the knowledge of the product and pro- duction configuration. e use of modern MES soware tools constructs and brings this visi- bility consistently to all manufacturing groups, which are now all on the same page. Decision making is done rapidly and through teamwork, rather than arguments. Production manage- ment are now orchestrators of efficient, rapid transitions, aided by execution management soware tools—a far more enjoyable and added- value role. Materials Managing the flow of materials in production was once a near impossible mission. Creating kits of materials, oen several work-orders in advance across every production configura- tion, was a lot of work, leading to stress caused by oen missing or insufficient materials. With spoilage and attrition causing differences between ERP-based inventory stock levels and the physical stock, frequent unexpected short- cuts, planning changes, and un-kitting and re- kitting were necessary. Knowing that a single mistake in such an environment would likely have a catastrophic impact on product qual- ity, as well as the cost to the business of excess material investment, meant that anyone with