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Plastics & Rubber

MES software solutions for the Plastics and Rubber industry

 

Key challenges facing the Plastics and Rubber industry

Plastics and rubber have taken a prominent place in an incredible variety of products from automotive, packaging, construction, electronics and household products.

In a context of rising global demand, the industry faces many challenges:
  • Increasing global competition from lower-cost countries force manufacturers to become more efficient and to add value to the customer relationship
  • Unpredictable fluctuation in raw material prices threaten profitability 
  • High volume producers must minimise downtime and maximise OEE to achieve profits
  • Run factories with fewer people, requiring more automation and better standardised processes
  • Changing consumer life-style and taste drive innovation in the sector
  • Global awareness of sustainability issues backed by environmental legislations put pressure on plastics and rubber manufacturers to develop products that meet the new standards 

How can Lighthouse Systems MES help you?

Shopfloor-Online MES/MOM software allows you to gain control of your production operations. It can integrate with ERP to download the production schedule and track order execution. 
The MES software connects directly to machines to count production and alert to performance problems in an environment where there are few people to manage the process. Tracking your tooling down to cavity level, it can manage all quality data and help manage all maintenance operations. 
 
  • Drive performance in real-time by tracking performance KPIs in real-time e.g. downtime, speed, OEE and the impact of cavity closures on production volumes.
  • Improved schedule management and communication support better team work with the tool-room and faster change-overs.
  • Compliance with environmental regulations is enabled by the Manufacturing Execution System.
  • Paperless shop floor operations mean accurate information is available in real-time with no waste of operators’ time.
With Shopfloor-Online modules, take a step by step approach to MES investment. Expect each investment to make a return within 6-12 months.
  • KPIs and reporting are readily available to help you drive operational excellence and lean initiatives through production. 
  • Standardise operations  across all plants.
  • Implement cross-plant benchmarking.
  • Increase manufacturing agility and adapt to demand changes quicker.
  • Support the IT strategy of your company with an information system seamlessly connecting plant equipment to plant operations, to business management.
  • Lower the risk of implementation with a step-by-step approach to MES software and incrementally meet business needs with Shopfloor-Online modules.
  • Improve access and ease deployment – Shopfloor-Online is web-based, accessible anywhere on the network.
  • A global solution -  Lighthouse Systems’ manufacturing operations management solutions are multi-site, multi-lingual, multi-time-zone. 
  • Reduce the complexities of support and training with one Manufacturing Execution System addressing all operations needs.
  • Cloud based MES Software - move the servers to the corporate data centre or move to the cloud.
  • Lean IT – consolidate manufacturing operations with one scalable platform, remove home-grown applications and reduce the number of interfaces to various systems increasingly difficult to support.