The manufacturing industry is faced with a constant need to manage a lot of challenges. Some of the most prominent ones include  changing regulations, difficulties in production environment and complex equipment that are difficult to maintain. Any unscheduled manufacturing downtime can affect production and result in losses, it can even affect the quality of the product being produced and dent the image of the company.

Impact Of Equipment Downtime, Reliability, and Availability

It is highly important for manufacturers to have fully functional equipment so their operations can go on normally without any obstructions. Scheduled downtime is important as it gives opportunity for changeovers, cleaning and changing tools and equipment, personal breaks, early shutdowns, or any un-planned events that can occur like repairs or breakdowns that can affect important business.

Equipment reliability has to do with the health of the equipment and how it performs a task optimally. Other attributes are also considered like performance and quality of the equipment. Equipment availability on the other hand is the actual time a system or machine is available for production as a percent of total planned production time. Other common challenges that plague the industry include:

• Increased downtime: This can disconnect the supply the chain, reduce production, create missed deadlines, and even increase penalties.
• Increasing costs of maintenance: Complete failures can occur as businesses reduce their maintenance to save money. It can severely affect operations and revenue.
• Production dips: This is caused by gaps in equipment availability or asset and it can negatively affect production and the revenue of the company.
• Equipment repair: When Preventive maintenance is lacking, businesses will be forced to perform repairs as needed. This will lead to uncertainty when the when the status of the equipment is being asked and it can also cause prolonged downtimes.
• Equipment replacement: Upkeep is cheaper and better than replacement but when the equipment are not well maintained, replacement costs will exceed the total costs of having a basic maintenance plan.

How an ERP System Can Change Unscheduled Manufacturing Downtime

With an ERP system, more and more manufacturing organizations can control their machinery and reduce time-to-insight. This technology helps businesses control their data and offer integrated analytic and workflows. Microsoft dynamics allows businesses hasten the movement of goods, remove waste caused by costly shelf-life expirations and returns, and also improve the production efficiency of the organization. Some of the advantages of using an ERP system like Dynamics 365 to minimize unscheduled manufacturing downtime. include:

1. Ensure centralized quality control (QC) and regulatory support

This helps manufacturers hasten and simplify compliance with regulatory agencies such as the FDA. With this, organizations can use integrated quality controls and lot traceability to link raw materials through each operation of the production process.

2. Effectively manage inventory

ERP systems help pull inventory in sequence and enables customer service to ship lots that arrive with the correct amount of shelf-life remaining. It also performs calculations for inventory reservations, picking, reducing inventory, and eliminating waste.

3. Conduct extensive audit trails

It offers complete visibility into audit trails and batch production. Incorporate electronic signature functionality into an existing business process.

4. Improve production planning

ERP accurately models the process of costly ingredients in order to minimize under-runs and over-runs. Shelf-life planning will help account for expiration dates during the production and distribution.

5. Protect formulas

Dynamics 365 helps organizations document many ingredients, manufacturing processes, storage requirements, etc.  and you can review this information at any time. This technology enables you  to set security restrictions to make sure that only users you approve can make changes thereby protecting your critical assets.

As the manufacturing sector continues to grow and evolve, they need to understand the importance of intelligent technologies like dynamics 365 and embrace them. This is the best way for manufacturers to maximize their assets availability and track the reliability of their machines. It allows them drive towards increased productivity, enhanced safety assurance, and higher quality products.