Improving product quality, reducing rework

High impact solutions quickly improve operations, protecting margins and delivering quality for a sustainable competitive advantage

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the Proficy® Accelerator for Centerlining, enabling continuous improvement and resolution of problems due to variability, in a move to full process reliability and stability. Centerlining is the next solution in the company’s ever-growing line of Proficy Accelerator software and services offerings, delivering functionality in a low-risk, extremely rapid manner by using a proven, template-based approach.

Companies today need a way to automatically track all the data they accumulate from operations, figure out what is “normal” and when things are off track so they can “manage by exception.” Centerlining, also called run-to-target, helps reduce variability and increase efficiency. The goal of the Proficy Accelerator for Centerlining is to reduce costs due to material losses and other waste from process and product variability, as well as increase throughput and yield.

Proficy Accelerator for Centerlining solution focuses on rapidly identifying process and product inconsistencies, performing statistical analysis to improve control, and managing and improving operations in real-time. This solution will drive operational excellence to improve product quality, reduce rework and the risks associated with product safety, and ultimately enable a sustainable competitive advantage.

“Through our long history in the software business, we have continually enhanced our solutions to drive continuous improvement programs allowing companies to build on their progress along a consistent set of milestones,” said Sheila Kester, General Manager for GE Intelligent Platforms’ Operations Management Software. “This Operational Excellence journey starts with plant level efficiencies and builds upon analytics across the production network for improved planning and execution. Proficy Accelerator solutions allow manufacturers to quickly implement the Proficy Software Platform to take advantage of these gains.”

Proficy Accelerator consists of powerful, out-of-the-box solutions that can rapidly demonstrate business value from the Proficy Software platform in as little as 30 days with minimal risk. It is an easy way to prove the value of Proficy and jumpstart the Operational Excellence journey. In addition to the Centerlining solution, GE Intelligent Platforms has also introduced:

· Proficy Accelerator for Production Efficiency allows manufacturers to maximize the utilization of their plant assets. It provides visibility into factors such as equipment downtime, changeover effectiveness, waste and operating efficiency. It supports root-cause analysis by automatically linking downtime events to a specific cause in real time.

· Proficy Accelerator for Change Management drives increased efficiency of personnel and productivity. This solution helps organizations assess, monitor, manage, control and lower project and maintenance costs associated with software and device management.

· Proficy Accelerator for Manufacturing Energy Management correlates energy costs with manufacturing production, rapidly enabling sustainable operational excellence and energy cost savings.

· Proficy Accelerator for Packaging Performance utilizes an operator-centric performance management paradigm to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), production rate, availability and order fulfillment while reducing waste and labor costs. This solution provides critical insight into high-speed packaging line operations. When fully implemented, customers have seen OEE increases of between 5% and 12% on packaging lines over time.