I have noted recently across regulated industries, for example Medical Device and Aerospace, it has been interesting to see the adoption of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems in the 'dream' and 'design' phases of a new product introduction. The advantages of being able to design and model a product in a virtual world delivers many benefits in understanding the overall production risk.
Typically during the design phase the team may collect data including:
• Physical attributes of a product
• Materials involved in its production
• A schedule for the production process
• Methods of production
This process will generate an enormous amount of data, and for many companies will remain, long term, with the design team. This information and knowledge generated have an important part in ensuring that the product design will comply with vertical regulatory requirements.
That design then has to be manufactured in a controlled and regulated environment. Some leading PLM systems will allow you to virtually model the plant, production process, equipment and people interactions. This makes me raise the question - why don’t we transfer this PLM model into a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) environment?
The MESA MES model defines the requirements of an MES system as 'capable of mapping the designs of a PLM manufacturing virtual environment, into a real-time operational manufacturing system', thus transforming 'dream' and 'design' data into a format where a real product can be delivered.
Surely transforming this data and knowledge should be part of the drive to maintain a compliant manufacturing process, whilst being able to optimise new product introductions.
Richard Stone, Business Unit Manager, EmsPT
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