In case of production management of regulated industries of food and beverages, COMES supports crucial aspects, such as productivity, quality, materials management and automated process traceability, production records and documentation. Considering the complexity of the processes and current pressure on the price of products a support for the quality IT solutions is very welcome.
Coverage of processes of a company
COMES covers the entire range of production activities of a company e.g. within the following shops:
- Raw materials receipt and storage
- Production preparation, weighing and raw materials dosing
- Production of substances, semi-finished products of intermediate products
- Filling products
- Packaging, group packaging and palletizing
- Storage of finished products or transfer of data about the finished products to ERP/WMS
Functions covered by the existing systems can be left intact or can be linked to a concept of the Electronic Control of Production. The objective is to achieve an overall functionality of production management.
COMES supports all production processes from warehouses through weighing, material dosing, production of substances and materials, homogenization and products production, filling and packaging incl. storage of products. It concerns processes such as:
- Receipt and storage of raw materials and materials, tests and material status
- Scheduling of production, planning quality tests and maintenance
- Information about product, recipes and bills of material (BOM), production documentation (SOP)
- Management of production and its stages
- Material management, material flow management, material monitoring, traceability
- Carrying out planned quality tests
- Records on production (EBR) and tests
- Working up production protocols, process of releasing products
- Warehousing of finished products
- Maintenance management (CMMS)
The above mentioned processes can be supported by COMES functions either selectively (puzzle system), or as a complex employment of COMES, which completes the ERP system in its all missing or unproductive functions for operational production and quality management and turns it into a very effective system. Fully equipped COMES application gives rise to a system of Electronically controlled production, which supports effectiveness of production processes of a company to the full.
Examples from practice
Annotation
An example from practice is the Electronically controlled production of baking mixtures. A system integration of functions is shown on the picture.
COMES, in case of Ireks - Enzyma solution, consists of the modules:
- COMES Logon - users and system management
- COMES Modeller - for production orders management, production protocols, communication with ERP
- COMES Batch - system of recipe like production management, user configurable procedures
COMES communication with ERP
At the end of the shift the following actual production data is transferred to a particular ERP module:
- Synchronization of data about raw materials, semi-finished products and products (warehouse items) between COMES system and the ERP warehouse module
- COMES system thus obtains all necessary information about warehouse items and is then able to check on the availability of materials used (e.g. it avoids creation of a technological production procedure involving materials not filled in the company’s information system warehouse module).
- Additionally the ERP is provided with all the information about produced products and used materials. Manual transfer of the data from one system to the other is entirely eliminated, transmission delays minimized and data transfer errors avoided.
- Transfer of data about required production batches created from the customers’ orders: From the information read out from the company’s information system and with the help of a technological procedure, COMES generates a mixture prescription, according to which, the entire system for the production and processes’ management, works.
Contributions of Electronic production management
Contributions to the manufacturer that were achieved:
- Speeding up the batch production (now about 20min), higher productivity and total plant performance
- Adding flexibility of the production cycle from the order to the delivery, shorter delivery times
- Electronic production management
- Reduction in costs and production administration
