For its recently completed 2013-2014 MOM survey, LNS researchers interviewed some 325 manufacturing professionals about their practices in software selection and use of internal resources, systems integrators, and consultants. They found that it isn't necessarily only software and technology that makes MOM successful.
Speaking to Tech Trends Journal, Mark Davidson, principal analyst at LNS, said a MOM implementation must serve the key business objective of “operational excellence,” i.e., the application of continuous improvement to increase business and manufacturing performance. He believes that “the three key dimensions” of MOM are people, processes, and supporting technology, and the best manufacturers are aligning these elements to allow operational excellence to click in.
Tom Comstock, vice president in the DELMIA division of French technology solutions company Dassault Systemes, agrees that a MOM initiative should be governed by a high-level goal.
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Comstock, whose division offers Apriso, an MOM solution, told Tech Trends Journal that a manufacturer is unlikely to be successful at MOM if the goal “is to simply replace legacy IT systems or to fix a broken process.” He said, however, that “if you seek a new approach to manage your operations on more of a global scale or to accelerate your innovation process, then the potential benefits can be quite substantial.”
MOM refers to a range of technology solutions for managing manufacturing from end to end, encompassing a company’s maintenance, production, quality, and inventory operations. In a guide to MOM software selection, Davidson wrote that MOM applications are meant to “provide critical support and enforcement of industrial and manufacturing processes and procedures, while facilitating a bridge between enterprise and business operations systems and the industrial automation systems that provide plant floor control.”
Many manufacturers have tried to meet this need with a mix of in-house applications, spreadsheets, and packaged software, he wrote. But such piecemeal solutions have been difficult to coordinate, standardize, and replicate across enterprises and external value chains.
More recently, though, new technologies and standards have emerged “that are proving to simplify integration costs, provide broader enterprise manufacturing scope, and enable real-time decision-making and collaboration across entire manufacturing organizations, along with their partners,” Davidson wrote. Suppliers in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution system (MES) spaces, as well as in product life-cycle management (PLM), have begun to extend the scope of their offerings to meet the end-to-end needs implied in the MOM model, along with platforms that facilitate development, integration, and collaboration.
Tech Trends Journal asked Davidson what the best-performing companies are doing in the MOM arena that sets them apart. His response did not place the priority on software or technology.
Instead, he said, “Harnessing the potential of people is one of the greatest assets that companies can leverage for an effective operational excellence journey.” Top manufacturers “have organized around cross-functional teams to support this journey.” The LNS MOM survey found that “50 percent of manufacturing companies have done this already.”
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This article was originally published on ThomasNet News Industry Market Trends and is reprinted in its entirety with permission from Thomas Industrial Network. For more stories like this please visit Industry Market Trends.