Polymer producer upgrades production work process platform
Sabic Innovative Plastics selects Proficy Workflow from GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms to improve work processes and drive leaner production at Lexan plant in the Netherlands.
Peter Welander -- Control Engineering, 10/31/2009
 Lexan can be made in many forms |
Sabic Innovative Plastics will implement Proficy Workflow at its Lexan production plant in Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands. Sabic expects to use the system to connect and organize people and work processes to drive lean production initiatives, ease decision making on the plant floor, and reduce costs. The Lexan plant produces more then 2 million kg of plastics per week serving various industries, including automotive, construction, consumer electronics, and medical appliances
"Work Process Management from GE will help us do the required jobs in the right sequence and in the correct anticipated time - which coincides directly with our Lean production initiatives," says Peter Bobbe, process availability leader and certified lean six sigma black belt for Sabic. "With Proficy Workflow, we can streamline production and continuously improve every work process, reducing waste and costs."
GE says that Proficy Workflow helps production teams find and eliminate waste faster and easier by making sure best practices become standard practices. The system enables electronic work instructions to guide operators through proper production steps and take automatic corrective action. Sabic will be able to manage work processes and compliance electronically and interactively, ensuring proper completion of all work process steps.
As a work process management software system, Proficy Workflow enables users and domain experts to digitize manual and automated processes with one tool - capturing process, traceability and quality data across systems to reduce errors, waste, and delays. Companies can manage by exception, orchestrate production, and achieve event-based, data-driven results.
"While Proficy Workflow monitors and manages execution of work processes, supervisors can also navigate the system's higher-level views," Bobbe adds. "Supervisors can view all of the workflows running within the system, assess performance, determine and deploy a new best practice as standard work, generate reports, and more. The loss of time due to incorrect decisions will be reduced to a minimum, we'll have better asset utilization and employee efficiency, and therefore a leaner organization."
-Edited by Peter Welander, process industries editor, peter.welander@reedbusiness.com
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