How Technology Improves Manufacturing
Serving clients in the competitive food industry meant this food manufacturer needed a new level of sophistication in technology.
Manufacturing companies live and die by the amount of efficiency achieved from every process. Time spent manually moving data around a spreadsheet or waiting for confirmation about the successful completion of a loading dock is time and money wasted.
That’s why many in the manufacturing industry are looking to revamp their technology infrastructure. It’s not about replacing human workers, but enhancing their efforts while finding areas of improvement that can result in positives for the entire organization.
Still in the Dark Ages
Micro Visions' long-standing food manufacturing client was running operations through a series of paper documents and Excel spreadsheets that were inefficient, wasteful and prone to avoidable problems in production.
A disparate workforce of 30 employees did their best to communicate with each other – from office to production to QA, throughout the company – in pursuit of delivering quality products. But, they found themselves at the mercy of many manual, back-and-forth communications to keep things running smoothly.
Seeing the Light
Company leaders decided the time had come to establish more secure control and monitoring of production, using established technologies. With Micro Visions’ help, they implemented line-of-business software that allowed them to track production and enabled instant messaging across 30 new iPads, using a secure channel.
Guiding the Process
Micro Visions worked with the manufacturer to implement the new line-of-business application to help the company:
- Track processing speed
- Gain insight into loss ratios
- Facilitate better communication among the staff
- Access real-time statuses on tasks and processes
We brought our in-depth technical expertise to the company, shining a light on essential infrastructure support needed to carry out a successful transition to the new technology and way of conducting business. This included:
- Replacing their virtual machine server and adding new switches
- Expanding their new wireless network to accommodate all the added technology
- Updating their firewall to one better equipped to support their software changes
- Establishing mobile device management to inventory, track and monitor the iPads
- Installing threat management software that prevents the installation of high-risk applications and prevents workers from browsing questionable websites on company devices
- Replacing devices that were running Windows 7 in preparation for the end-of-support date of January 14, 2020.
Technology Improves Manufacturer Production
The changes had an immediate impact throughout the operation. Each worker gained real-time insights into the speed of production so they could adjust accordingly. Most importantly, the software heightened production accountability and the plant was able to improve their processes by identifying trouble areas, leading to a reduction in waste and overhead costs.
With their new application’s powerful analytics, the plant’s executive team can use data insights to identify further improvements and company strengths.
By updating their firewall and adding mobile device management, the company can assure clients of security – knowing recipes, confidential manufacturing processes and other top secret materials won’t be exposed to competitors or criminals through malicious or negligent behavior – giving them the peace of mind to continue exploring how technology can enhance their operations.
The company, one of many manufacturing clients we provide stellar managed IT services to in Western Michigan area, trusted Micro Visions because of our long-standing relationship. If you’re dreaming of how to use technology to make your manufacturing plant more efficient, productive or secure, we can help.
Contact us online or call us at (616) 776-0400.
