Introduction
Minor inefficiencies quickly add up on the shop floor.
Weak integration between your ERP and PLCs may not seem like an urgent issue — until there’s a malfunction in a PLC and your team needs to diagnose how the disruption occurred. Without interconnectivity between your systems, insights will remain out of reach.
To truly drive innovation, manufacturing leaders need an enterprise level, scalable solution that puts systems in conversation with one another. At Syntax, we’re experts at helping manufacturers make this a reality.
In part one of our series exploring AWS Manufacturing solutions, we’re taking a deeper look at SAP Digital Manufacturing, and how modernizing plant floor operations can give manufacturing leaders the visibility needed to make data-driven decisions.
Inconsistent production cycles are an efficiency killer
Consistency in production is a critical goal, regardless of your vertical. Every product you sell has to go out the door on time, with a consistent level of quality. However, disconnected applications and manufacturing equipment can sabotage your efforts, making timeliness and consistency much harder to achieve.
For example, siloed data between your ERP and shop floor equipment can lead to protracted delays because employees must connect the dots manually. An employee notices a defect with a PLC and notifies another employee, who sends an email to another employee, who must reach out their supervisor, and so on.
These asynchronous actions exacerbate the impact of unanticipated delays or malfunctions, contributing to inconsistent production cycles. This inconsistency can manifest as inaccurate throughput rates, imprecise overhead calculations, excessive downtime, and shaky cybersecurity policies. In other words, a non-optimized plant floor that’s unable to stay on schedule.
How we helped a prominent food retailer reach their modernization goals
A major food retailer approached Syntax with a problem. They wanted an integrated, autonomous system that allowed them to optimize production execution and make data-driven decisions. With SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII) sunsetting in 2027, they were looking to transition to a more advanced platform in time for the opening of their new facility. The retailer was already leveraging AWS as their hyperscaler; our job was to connect their existing equipment and applications, from the top floor to the shop floor.
SAP Digital Manufacturing was the answer. SAP Digital Manufacturing is a comprehensive suite of solutions that helps manufacturers optimize operations, improve product quality, and accelerate time-to-market. By leveraging technologies like IoT, AI, and predictive analytics, SAP Digital Manufacturing enables manufacturers to streamline production processes and synchronize their disparate data connectors.
In the food retailer’s case, we worked with their team to create increased visibility into all their manufacturing operations. This provided greater standardization across all plants and lines as well as greater insights into product quality. Employees were able to more easily identify products that didn’t meet the required quality standards, and why this was the case.
Ultimately, SAP Digital Manufacturing enabled the retailer to consistently deliver high-quality products, and achieve more streamlined and efficient quality control.
The right AWS partner for you
At Syntax, our new AWS Manufacturing and Industrial Services Competency makes us the perfect partner to guide your modernization efforts. Leveraging deep industry knowledge and proven AWS solutions, Syntax empowers clients to streamline their operating models and achieve greater efficiency at scale. Ultimately, this designation validates Syntax as well-equipped to provide our manufacturing customers with curated solutions that drive innovation and transform operating models.
If you’re interested in learning more about SAP Digital Manufacturing and how we drive value for our customers, reach out to us today. And be on the lookout for part two of this series, where we’ll cover how Syntax Statistical Process Control can bring real-time statistical analysis of manufacturing data to the shop floor leveraging AWS services.