An ISA-95-based manufacturing intelligence system in support of lean initiatives

Increasingly, lean manufacturing is being applied by leading manufacturers throughout the world. As continuous improvement cycles of many lean initiatives focus on cost control and improving quality of product, turbulence in world markets demand more agility and responsiveness without compromising cost and quality. In order to attain more agility, information and communication technologies are utilized by many manufacturers, both at shop floor systems and enterprise resource planning (ERP) layer. This increasing trend created a disconnect that presents an opportunity for manufacturing intelligence (MI) systems. Bridging this gap, MI can enhance responsiveness by providing visibility into operations and improve quality by tracking long-term data, hence support the continuous improvement philosophy of lean manufacturing. This paper presents an ISA-95-based MI framework that can support lean manufacturing by contextualizing low-level shop floor data using production operation information from ERP systems. Processed data is presented on dashboards via Key Performance Indicators, which managers can use to determine appropriate action for their lean initiatives, timely and effectively.