CAPM.ART ·
ART ·
23.9 KB ·
1980-01-01 ·
from CompuLink-User-Group_Magazette_Vol-2-Issue-1_1986
This is part one of a two part article about Computer Aided
Production and Management (CAPM). CAPM is the specialist subject of
Mektronic Consultants of Manchester. This article comes to you
courtesy of Brian Benster and the staff at Mektronic's who would be
delighted to answer any of your enquiries about CAPM and how
Mektronic's can help you achieve cost effective CAPM.
MEKTRONIC CONSULTANTS - Specialist Electronic Designs.
Linden House, Telephone: 061 798 0803
116 Rectory Lane Telex: 666387 MEKTRONIC
Prestwich, Prestel MBX: 617980803
Manchester
M25 5DB
COMPUTER AIDED PRODUCTION AND MANAGEMENT
A CAPM system in a four tier structure of a conceptional automated
factory will be depicted. Possible benefits and roles of such a system
will also be described as will the features of the end users
microcomputer system to implement CAPM.
1. INTRODUCTION
It has long been realised that CAPM (Computer Aided Production and
Management) systems are very effective in controlling the whole
management system and production operation of a manufacturing company.
The original application areas for computer systems in industry were
for accountancy and financial planning. It was the need to be able to
collect information from the production operation which prompted
initiatives that resulted in the early concepts for Computer Aided
Production Control.
Perhaps the reason why the development of CAPM was hindered and was
limited to larger organisations at the outset, was the high price of
the mainframe computer. With the advent of lower priced microcomputers
and a wider selection of approachable business software packages,
development of the computer proceeded further, to its fourth generation
and the development of CAPM has brought new life.
This report tries to disclose a new concept of what a CAPM system
should be in various functional areas of an automated factory, and the
possible roles that such a system can play in these areas.
Although in such a system various degrees of computer system such as
mainframe, mini or micro could be involved, this report will
concentrate on a system for an end user's microcomputer. This is
because such a system is usually put into the first place to be
re-organised.
The report consists of the following sections:- firstly an outline
on 'What is CAPM' and the background detailing its boom; secondly the
four tier structure of a conceptional automated factory and the
possible roles of a computer system to implement CAPM, will be
presented; and finally a suggested plan for re-organisation of the end
user's microcomputer system will be included.
2. WHAT IS CAPM?
Computer aided production and management makes use of computer power
which has long been well-known to be effective in collecting, storing,
retrieving, processing, communicating, distributing, displaying,
plotting, printing etc., large quantities of information, to aid the
complex system of production and management in a company.
The functional areas of CAPM involve almost every facet and nuance
in the total process of an automated factory: forecasting, tendering,
designing, manufacturing, testing, selling, installing and supporting
and maintaining a product.
The key advantage that CAPM can give is the common database from
which all information for all activities, is drawn. The existence of
this database means that the production management process is no longer
a series of loosely coupled activities, each one conducted with little
or no regard for the rules and limitations of the others. Instead they
become a set of tightly coupled activities which can be repeated easily
and quickly to reach the ever sought optimum solution.
Moreover, it is essential for a CAPM system to be fully integrated.
There is nothing new in specialised hardware and real time software for
process control. There is nothing new in data collection and
statistical analysis, payroll and accounting. Full communication and
exchange of data between the engineering, manufacturing and
administration departments of a company is the goal.
3. BACKGROUND WHICH DESCRIBES THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CAPM
The control of manufacturing costs and production workloads are
critical factors which contribute to the success of manufacturing
companies. In practice, this goal is attained by the introduction of
effective control systems to monitor and record daily business activity
and provide basic data for decision making. The expertise and
responsibility for running such systems may be vested in individuals
whose skill and judgement is influenced by the responsiveness of the
supporting information, provided to enable crucial value judgement to
be made. In addition, comprehensive paper base systems may be
introduced, but often it proves difficult to extract relevant
information when it is required. Moreover, such systems often consume
valuable time and effort through the maintenance effort required.
Given these concerns it is not surprising that managers, even in
small manufacturing companies, are looking towards computer technology
to provide assistance in the management of data and the generation of
information to support the decision-making process.
The early concept for computer aided production control is simply
made a straight financial issue. In fact computer aids for accountancy
and financial planning were the original application areas for
computing systems in industry. Today, the new concept of CAPM calls
for complete integration of all the functional areas involved:
administration and operations, design engineering, finance and
accounting, production and stock control. In other words, it is
integration amongst corporate level management, inter-departmental
level management and the shop/factory floor production.
4. BACKGROUND WHICH EXPLAINS THE CAPM BOOM
Although the concept of CAPM is not new, its application has only
relatively recently been widely adopted by the engineering industries.
This was because implementation of the system was largely dependent
upon the development of computer technology.
Within the mainframe computer world, only some large organisations
could afford to bring in computer power to implement CAPM and to
provide suitable skilled staff to handle the complicated systems.
Moreover, in the beginning, data processing was centralised in the data
processing department and the response time was long. Thus, it seemed
impractical to implement the CAPM system and so the concept of the
system could not be extended.
Later as the minicomputer came on the scene, the situation improved
slightly. The advent of minicomputers brought computer power at a
price that made production control, suitable for the medium-sized or
smaller company, a practical proposition. Meanwhile, the minicomputer
offered a very successful alternative to the frustrations of mainframe
computing; it was able to function unattended for long periods of
time; and it was relatively straightforward to interface to other
equipment. Despite the advance in hardware technology of the
minicomputer, the costs were still high, supporting what was only a
relatively small market segment. U.K. companies as a whole, were
still slow in adopting computer-aided production control.
Now the boom in microprocessor and large scale memory technology has
brought a new dawn for computer-based production control:- interactive
operation, large working memory space, simple information input and
enquiry devices and colour graphics. This is the fourth generation of
computer development. With the advent of lower priced microcomputers
and a wider selection of approachable business software, small
businesses and middle-management began to willingly adopt computer
aided production control. Besides cheapness, this type of computer
development can also offer the following advantages which:-
1) are easy to use by people who are not computer experts.
2) offer extensive, immediate assistance to users to guide them
through the interactive sequences within the computer, e.g. query
language and screen printer.
3) provide mix and match facilities to cater for the variation in
the functional needs of companies.
4) give clear, comprehensive reporting facilities.
It is largely because of the above advantages which microcomputers
provided, that the manufacturing companies started to implement the
CAPM system and made a boom of it.
5. OUTLINE OF A CONCEPTIONAL AUTOMATED FACTORY
The conceptional automated factory is the result of the CAPM system
integrating all the functional areas of the factory together. Data can
be transferred from one area to another through the common base data
system and the system in each area can survive independently.
Additionally, the system can be expanded as it has been designed to be
modular. Below is a list of the typical areas of an automated
factory:-
1) Operational Control:
includes sales forecasts, sales analysis, order entry purchasing,
shipping, standards, costing, process planning, work routing, tooling
and plant, tool control, maintenance, etc.
2) Design Engineering:
includes 2D engineering drawings, parts lists, drawing revisions,
drawing records, records management, 3D design modelling, engineering
analysis, modelling and simulation, project control, etc.
3) Finance and Administration:
includes payroll, budgets, cost accounting, accounts payable,
accounts receivable, customer billing, general ledger asset accounting,
tax accountings, personnel records, etc.
4) Production and Inventory:
includes material resource planning, scheduling, work-in-progress,
material handling, quality control, product testing, inventory control,
dispatch of finished goods, etc.
5) Process Control: includes NC machinery, robotics, flexible
manufacturing systems, automatic test and measurement, automated
warehousing, etc. The above-mentioned functional areas can be
classified into four levels. Level One can be viewed as the
'instrumentation' or 'work station' level which is based on providing
control systems for use within the production process. These can be
either numerical control machines for lathes or drills, for example, or
indeed mechanical robots as seen on the production lines of major car
manufacturers. Such systems, although computer-controlled, often have
to be tailored to specific manufacturing organisations.
Level Two can be viewed as a 'control' level which is based on
supervisory processors which provide the control for the production
process. They will not only monitor and control the production lines,
but will often be used to store the software which is then downloaded
onto the numerical control machines and robots. These supervisory
processors are usually based on minicomputers, which can be located
wherever the production process is taking place.
Such systems are often linked with the planning processor, which is
usually seen as the third level in the four-tier structure. It is this
larger scale processor which is used to control the materials planning
applications, as well as the systems used for supervisory and
production control functions.
The planning processor together with the supervisory system can also
be linked with computer aided design and engineering applications so
that each aspect of the design and production process is fully
integrated and controlled. A manufacturing company will therefore have
the capability of planning accurately, the resource required,
monitoring the production process and also ensuring that products meet
the highest standards of quality and reliability.
In many larger organisations there is also the need to closely link
the manufacturing functions with the management information and
administrative needs of the company. To fulfil this need, the planning
processor can be linked with a corporate information processing system
which is seen as the fourth level in the automation strategy.
This large scale processor is used for developing corporate
production plans, financial and sales statistics and for handling the
daily processing needs of a large organisation. Such applications as
word processing, electronic mail, financial planning and business
graphics would therefore be integrated in Level Four of this strategy.
The above conceptional Four Level automated factory is already in
use within manufacturing centres in Europe and the USA. It has had
very positive benefits not only in terms of production cycles and
inventory levels, but also on the quality of production coming off the
end of the production line.
6. THE PRESENT TREND OF COMPUTER SYSTEM TO IMPLEMENT CAPM
Although the boom of the CAPM system was brought on by the
microcomputer, the real picture at present for CAPM is that the
mainframe computer is still being retained and takes up the role of a
centralised machine or an important part of a network, which connects
with micros in various topologies to the end users.
The mainframe of the future will be handling the following two
distinct areas:-
1) the organisation of production needs of the business, the routine
running of a large organisation with a heavy emphasis on the
reliability of the system and its speed of operation;
2) the management and handling of the information bases for the
company, i.e. the information needs of those departments which span
the whole company as opposed to the single user systems which will
service those individual departments.
In order to handle these two areas, a mainframe computer needs
powerful processors, large internal memories to cope with large amounts
of data at speed, fast channelling of that information through the
computer and many input/output ports to accommodate many terminals and
peripherals. It can also drive high speed disks, tapes and printers
and serve a variety of them.
The ultimate use of the microcomputer is to provide end users with
responsive processing power at their fingertips and under their
management control. Furthermore, the microcomputer can be used as a
means of entering data into and extracting it from the database of the
mainframe computer.
From the above, it seems clear that the minicomputer has been under
used in CAPM. Indeed, minicomputers can be used to replace mainframes
and microcomputers where necessary.
The minicomputer as a piece of a multi-processor unit, provides
features of 'real' database management systems that distinguishes it
from the so-called database system on a microcomputer. Moreover, it
can combine the reliable data control and handling ability of a DBMS
with the guaranteed speed of response to unstructured queries provided
by an Information Retrieval system.
There are several types of topologies that make the link of
mainframe and micros and these will be outlined in a later section.
7. POSSIBLE ROLES OF COMPUTERS IN THE AUTOMATED PRODUCTION AND
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.
Below is an outline of possible roles that computer systems can play
to aid the production and management system in an automated
manufacturing factory.
In the factory floor level, there is a wide diversity of products
spanning CAD workstations (intelligent instruments, process
controllers, component testers, assembly system - i.e. robotics and
insertion equipment) soldering equipment, field source testers, etc.
Traditionally these products have been 'stand-alone', task-specific
items and as such have evolved to a high degree of specialised
efficiency but at the expense of flexibility.
Today most of these instrumental/workstation level products can
communicate themselves and work sequentially by means of the Level Two
supervisory system.
The Level Two supervisory system concerns accessing information for
monitoring and reporting the existing condition of a production line.
Answers to the following questions are possible, to be provided by
means of an automated production supervisory system.
1) Which machines are producing and which have stopped?
2) How long have the stopped machines been down and for what reason?
3) At what rates are the machines producing and how does that
compare with their targets?
4) What product is Machine X producing, how much longer has the
batch to run and what is the reject rate?
5) Are we losing time because of a small number of lengthy
breakdowns or a large number of trivial faults and does the pattern
vary from machine to machine?
6) What are the main causes of downtime and how has this varied over
the past year?
The supervisory system consists of firstly, intelligent shop-floor
devices which automatically collect parts counts and machine status
information and a keypad and display which enable operator entry for
stoppages, enquiry on machine performance and entry of batch details if
appropriate; and secondly, a set of monitory software packages,
printers and visual display terminals to produce instantaneous status
reports, long-term analysis of performance and some special reports.
Level Three of the automated system mainly concerns the departmental
planning/control work and ordinary clerical work.
Departmental planning/control work includes work-in-progress,
job/variance costing, ABC analysis and perpetual audit, etc.
Ordinary clerical work includes parts lists, basic costing, routing,
extended costing, factory paperwork, purchase orders, etc.
Details of the above work areas are listed below:-
Work-in-Progress:
Holds details of all jobs in progress, either in summary or with
operation details, indicating their whereabouts, due dates and accrued
costs. Provides 'work to' list for each work centre and loading
enquiry data.
Job/Variance - Costing: In-batch working allows all deviations from
standard to be costed and analysed. For sub- contract of prototype
work, can be used to build up actual costs as jobs proceed, to give
retrospective check on profitability and to assemble and store data for
repeat orders.
Material Requirement Planning: Analyses the master manufacturing
schedule into fully-detailed material requirements making due allowance
for stocks, orders placed and lead times. 'Suggests' works orders and
purchase orders to meet the plan and provides means to confirm these if
accepted. Also provides data on future stock profiles.
Capacity Requirements Planning: Schedules all works orders through
relevant work centres indicating resulting load for each planning
period, differentiating between status levels 'suggested', 'planned',
'committed' and 'in progress' - for each other. By providing the
capability for a selective 'what if?' approach to load planning, it is
possible to carry out the all- important Impact Analysis.
Stock Control:
Holds on order/physical/allocated stock figures for all parts,
provides partial or total valuations; keeps audit trail of all
movements.
ABC Analysis and Perpetual Audit:
Grades all stock items by annual usage value and sorts into A, B and
C categories according to locally decided criteria. Then it will
provide check lists at correct frequency.
Trial Kitting:
Compares batch requirements against stock holdings and highlights
and controls shortages. If the trial is accepted by management, all
stock movements can be made by a single entry.
Parts List:
Holds detailed information on 'family trees' - structures and
quantities - as finished products are analysed down to raw materials
and bought out parts.
Basic Costing:
Provides a cost build-up from raw material level to final product
and maintains audit trail of cost change.
Routing:
Holds data in two files; relevant work centre data in one, routing
and operation details for each part number in the other.
Extended Costing:
Provides a total cost build-up for each part, detailing material,
labour and overhead costs.
Factory Paperwork:
Provides material requisitions, job cards and route cards
automatically generated from consistent data.
Purchase Order:
Hold details of suppliers and orders placed, allowing enquiry by
supplier, order or part number, highlighting overdues, completed
orders.
Level Four of the automated system concerns corporate decision
making, computer systems can do the following for such decision making
processes:-
Strategic/Long- term Planning: Includes business appraisals such as
changing company structure diversification studies.
Corporate Planning: Includes corporate models for
acquisition/merger studies and inter-company comparisons.
Functional Planning: Such as resource and manpower planning,
comparison of production, production methods, marketing/ distribution
decisions, production rationalisation/ launch stock policy.
Financial Planning: Such as corporate financing, leasing/buying
decisions, investment appraisal added value payment schemes, inflation
scenarios, implications, of development incentive, property
development, cash flow projections.
Financial Information System and Reports: Such as budgets, costing
and performance analysis, profit and loss accounts, balance sheets,
consolidation of accounts, source and application of funds, short-term
planning.
Besides the roles listed above where the computer system can aid in
the four-tier structure of an automated factory, there are many
applications where the computer can be used in design engineering, as
outlined in a later section.