Digitalization and the Sacred Cows of Automation - Part 3

By: Mike Holtkamp, Siemens Industry  

sa·cred cow ˈsākrid ˌkou/ noun sacred cow; plural noun: sacred cows, an idea, custom, or institution held, especially unreasonably, to be above criticism

Part 3 – Improving Quality

           I once worked in a factory with over 3,000 employees making hundreds of variations of parts for the electrical industry, namely circuit breakers. As my first job out of college, it was an amazing thing to see. The factory was over one million square feet and looked like a beehive of busy workers clustered in workgroups and assembly lines. Every part, or group of parts, had a piece of paper that traveled with it from station to station. It was read and reread dozens of times. At various points, detailed measurements were taken and recorded as they either, traveled further on their journey, or tossed into huge bins full of rejects. Sometimes, a swarm of industrial engineers would do a post mortem on the parts and play master detective to see when and where things went wrong. When things were going well, it was a well-oiled machine. When things did not go well, all hell broke loose! Because there was no connection between the traditional silos of industry: engineering, production, QC, sales and so on, the system was inherently inflexible and very manual to correct. Today, there are many companies, large and small, that employ this same methodology. So, is there a better way?

          As a consumer, I often look at the number of stars a product is given before making a purchase. This gives me the broadest view of quality. Not only do I look at  real quality in terms of “is it any good,” but I see if the product fit the needs of the people who buy it. Did it meet their expectations? Did it work in their application? Is it true to the published specifications? So, even if the product is well made, but it did not meet the buyer’s expectations or simply didn’t perform as they hoped, it will not garner 5 stars. This changes the nature of quality, doesn’t it? Accordingly, ISO 8402-1986 standard quality is defined as "the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs." How do we make sure we are fully “connected” with the stated or implied needs of the industrial consumer? The answer is simple: Digitalization.

           The nature of a fully closed loop in the Digital Enterprise means that data is connected from supplier to manufacturer to customer and back to supplier and so on. Instead of bins filled with “rejects” and team of engineers acting like an industrial coroners, real time data is fully connected as production machines, and even workers, are virtually self-correcting. In fact, using a digital twin, quality gets built into the product AND the process, before the first physical part is made. Quality is no longer an afterthought, but a vital part of product design, production planning, production engineering, production execution and services.

             So how does this relate to the sacred cows of automation? Sacred cows inhibit a seamless data flow and risk the unified integration needed to capture quality measurements in a uninterrupted, cohesive, and closed-loop manner. To make this happen, there must be no point along the digital thread where quality becomes separated from the product attributes or production execution. Only by using a common platform that spans product design, production planning, production engineering, production execution and services, can quality be fully optimized and get the full five stars!

Does your business deserve the full five stars with each and every customer?