Production Process Development For MES Specification

Abstract

In today´s manufacturing operations it is still common for companies to rely on disconnected pro-duction IT-systems and paper documentation that makes the process data quickly outdated and the process flow complicated. Manufacturing execution systems can highly improve the flow of data in the process and the collaboration of different process functions over different management level IT-systems. The target company for this thesis is one example of a company that could possibly benefit from such a system, but it is uncertain how such system should be implemented in their processes and what the benefits might be. The thesis aims to provide the company with a comprehensive understanding of manufactur-ing execution systems and the process of specifying user requirements for such system. The focus of the study is on process quality development for the plastics injection molding process. Analysing its current state and challenges posed by the implementation of manufacturing execu-tion system and defining example user requirements specification for such system establishes a framework for the company to continue the development and specification to their other pro-cesses. By conducting a detailed analysis, a deeper knowledge of the manufacturing process is obtained, facilitating future development plans. The thesis begins with a comprehensive literature review of related topics. It forms a basis for understanding manufacturing operations management, process and quality control, and manu-facturing execution systems and their requirement specification. The literature review also gives insight of how manufacturing execution systems might enhance the existing processes and what development opportunities such systems can bring for example with the real-time data collection they introduce. Through an in-depth examination of the current manufacturing process, including direct ob-servation and interviews of process participants, detailed process models are formed. Further analysis and validation of the formed process models identifies challenges, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement within the process. Next the research continues to development phase of the case study. First, workshops are arranged with personnel involved in the production process and its support functions to address the challenges and improvement possibilities identified earlier. The workshops concentrate on their individual themes of development of the current production process, quality assurance and control process and product traceability development. Based on the results of the workshops, a thorough set of development opportunities for the existing process is proposed. Lastly, the development opportunities are analysed and evaluated based on their implemen-tation complexity and relevance to manufacturing execution system. This evaluation is then used to form the example manufacturing execution system user requirement specification clauses list for the company. The results of the thesis prepare the company for the possible future specification process for a manufacturing execution system. It also proposes a set of practicable development opportuni-ties for the studied process and provides a foundation for the company to continue the definition of current processes and identifying the development opportunities to other functions within the company. The presented results are a proposal of how the company could prepare the examined part of the process and do not represent a definite and complete list of needed enhancements for the manufacturing execution system to function properly.