siliconindia | | November 20188he new technological advances in complex algorithms, data pro-cessing and storage have made the Fully Automated Fulfillment centers a real-ity, where a large number of Robots work in tandem to fulfill customer demands for `Make to Stock (MTS)' products. We see several such use cases and production deployment of Robots for demand fulfillment with increased fulfillment throughput. While the organizations are re-orienting their business processes to be more customer-centric, the next level of technological advances will re-design the `Make to Order (MTO)' or `Engineered to Order' manufacturing and fulfillment processes. The concept of `Mass customization' is evolving, and manufacturers are experimenting with the different aspects of the same. This article will try to share a perspective on next generation MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) relevant to Industry 4.0.Mass Customization on the Production Mass customization on the production line is being attempted by organizations which have been able to integrate all the ends of the fulfillment processes to an enterprise wide platform with seamless information exchange. The SCOR v12 model defines agility as one of the five attributes for performance benchmarking of a supply chain process and agility in customer order fulfilment is an important aspect. There are organizations which have matured the processes of offering `customized product' on their customer facing (CRM) applications, where a customer can request his/her own configuration of a product available from the catalogue and this unique demand is then fulfilled. These are then integrated to the organization's Supply Chain Operations Systems (ERP) for demand & supply planning, to fulfill the customer's order in the shortest possible time & lower cost. Still, we have manufacturing process which is decoupled from individual demands and this reduces the Order Fulfillment Rate (OFR) and ultimately impacts the customer experience. iMES (Intelligent Manufacturing Execution System) which is able to drive the agility in the production process will help in this by creating bridge between various shop floor systems and providing seamless integrated ecosystem for real-time information visibility for better and faster decision making.TPanasonic is a multinational electronics company which manufactures & markets several products such as camera, phones, headphones, television, desk fans and many other products.By Sandeep Kulkarni (Head - Information Technology Division) & Kislaya Anand (Manager - India Service Delivery Function), PanasonicDIGITAL MANUFACTURING FOR AN INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE IN MY OPINIONKislaya Anand
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