The Top Challenges of the Factory Floor & How to Digitize the Process

For a paper-based production process, there are risk and liability issues associated with the process. Therefore, this blog addresses the factory floor’s top challenges – and shows how these challenges can be solved with a digital solution.

Challenge 1: Security

A production process that runs on paper is very difficult to track once the document has been printed. The lack of trackability makes it challenging to know where the production order is on the factory floor and can make a company vulnerable to security risks.

While there can be trackability on whether the document was printed, a company can also add additional security by requiring a pin or a badge to print out the document. However, once the document is printed in these instances, the ability to track it is very challenging. For example, once printed, anybody can pick the document up.

Another security risk of a paper-based production process is that the document can be disposed in any number of ways. This could mean throwing the document in the trash and not shredding it, or it could mean delivering the document to competitors.

Challenge 2: Up-to-Date Information

Once something is printed, it is almost obsolete from the get-go. This is because once a document is printed out, it is very difficult to make any changes. If any changes need to be made once the document has been printed, there are two ways the updates can be made:

Print out another full document with the changes
Print out just the changes

Either way, the changes also require someone having to run and get the updated information to the operator.

Challenge 3: Loss of Information

With a paper production process, there is also the challenge of the information getting lost. Paper itself has many liabilities, especially when it comes to losing information: it is easy to lose, miss pages, or be affected in other ways like a spilled drink. In short, it’s just easier to lose the information in some way, shape, or form with paper.

Challenge 4: Operator Feedback

Capturing any feedback from operators is also difficult with a paper process. Sometimes an operator can provide notes, but a lot of the time, those notes are lost or not shared/reviewed. Therefore, there’s no real input from the operators on the plant floor, and there is definitely no ability to provide feedback from operators in real-time with a paper production process.

The Solution: Digitize the Process

Switching to digital processes avoids disruptions and makes production operations faster, up-to-date, and more secure. Employees immediately receive all order-related information and documents on their screens/terminals – at their workstations. And the information is prepared exactly as each employee needs it. The screens/terminals are not just used as displays. They are also there to process updates, for entering batch numbers, serial numbers, QA data, and the automatic transfer of QA data for testing tools. This two-way paperless communication means every workstation has the latest data in real-time.

SEAL Systems: The World Provider of Paperless Production

SEAL Systems combines the production order output with additional documents (drawings, packaging guidelines, etc.) to streamline production. Our solution digitizes your production process, making you ready for the challenges of the future.

Our Paperless Production solution also provides:

The right information at the right time to the right workstation.
Feedback on working hours, material quantity, scrapped quantity, and the reason for the variance.
An intuitive, easy to learn interface with individual configuration for each workstation, plant, and language.
Software on HTML-5 enabled devices with the added security of encrypted data.
Up-to-date information on the production floor with feedback captured on the workstations and added directly back into SAP.
Because all the documents are digital, the headache of lost paper is eliminated.
There is instant feedback on where things are in the process, updated in real-time.

With a few clicks, communicate more effectively with the entire production process.