Material Control | FACTIVITY MES Software

At FACTIVITY we have found the most of our customers are now wanting to report actual raw material usage at the initial “start-up” manufacturing operation.

By moving the actual reporting directly to the line you can remove errors associated with tracking of component usage and:

  1. Improve the accuracy of the actual amount consumed by part/job
  2. Eliminate errors which can also occur from incorrect materials reported to a part/job
  3. Eliminate incorrect identification numbers such lot/heat/serial for customer or government tracking requirements.

Allowing the operator to select from an available lot list for example, using a touch screen, can improve this activity both in time savings and reduction in errors.  Some ERP systems pre-assign lot numbers but material people sometimes pick the right part but wrong lot.  Other times, a lot of material is completely used-up and another new lot must be assigned to the production which again can cause problems in tracking correctly.

Additional logic such as real-time inventory validation inquiry along with an improved User Interface (UI) specifically designed for ease-of-use just might be the best solution.  This type of functionality can be found in a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) using touch screens instead of a bar coder RF device and their required paper travelers.

FACTIVITY allows the tracking of individual production quantities associated as a Lot. This unique ID can be created on demand or input from some external production planning system. The ID has its own set of operational steps each with it own start and stop time.

Operator are tracked against this operation along with a time stamp on each for each recorded production quantity

Raw materials and their associated numbers used in the job are tracked to each ID and can include:

  • One unique material from the BOM
  • Several materials that require tracking
  • All the materials on the Bill of Material or Recipe
  • By Inventory location
  • By lot of material
  • By serial number
  • By heat number

FACTIVITY can create unique lot numbers with pre-set prefixes or suffices as required along with customer specific information which can be added to part labels. Labels can be printed on demand as produce is produced to eliminate paper handles and mislabeling of parts.

MES Myths and Mistakes …

Not knowing about the issues surrounding this technology can cost your factory plenty!

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