Take the Scrap into Account
Scrap is a major challenge for plastic products manufacturers. During production, there is always some excess material, such as flash, feed, or tail. This expected scrap must be taken into account when planning the material required for each job. IFS Applications lets companies identify this expected scrap at the item and/or product structure (recipe or bill of material) level so that the required quantity is accounted for during the planning cycle and production starts with enough material to produce the expected quantity.
Built-in Quality Management
Because variability in quality is present from raw materials through the manufacturing process, it is critical to have good processes and excellent quality systems. Good processes involve documentation and workflows, which IFS provides through integrated web-based help and interactive business models. IFS’ quality systems include integrated control plans, statistical process control, and failure mode effects and analysis (FMEA) at the design and process levels of the application. Combined with the ability to manage manufacturing issues by splitting orders and generating material review boards, IFS offers an industry-leading solution for built-in quality.
A Solution for Both High and Low Volumes—At the Same Time
Most plastic products manufacturers face the challenges of a mixed-mode environment—that is, running high-volume production on some products and low-volume or discrete production on others. This often becomes a scheduling nightmare because of limited machinery capabilities and downtime during changeovers between products. IFS Applications provides a solution to this problem by making it possible to run some products as production line items (high volume) and others as discrete (job shop). IFS provides graphs and tables to pinpoint where the issues are or are going to be, allowing the scheduler to react faster and be more proactive. For the discrete order applications, a setup matrix that helps minimizes downtime during changeovers. IFS Applications also includes constraint-based scheduling (CBS) for production environments in which there are a need to schedule around a constraining workstation.
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