Keith Carey is understandably excited.
After more than 20 years of stalled pilot projects and aborted proof-of-concept initiatives, Carey is convinced that Dow Corning Corp. has finally put together a workable strategy for deploying an electronic work instruction (EWI) application that will use a manufacturing execution system (MES) to automate and streamline the flow of information between plant floor operators and the company's SAP ERP system. The system, based on a tight integration between an MES application from Performix Inc. and the ERP system, will replace paper-based work instructions on the shop floor with electronic records and do things like validate in real time that the right materials have been used for a given order. Tests in three Dow Corning U.S. plants have shown that the system has the potential to reduce scrap by 50% and significantly improve product traceability, consistent quality, and employee safety.
"This will deliver a level of integration between enterprise systems and the plant floor that is unprecedented," says Carey, manufacturing operations automation manager at Dow Corning. "We see this as a sort of automation Holy Grail."