CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS INDUSTRY

SAP Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Critical for the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Industry

For many companies in the CPG space today, keeping up-to-date and leveraging the newest manufacturing IT/OT technologies must be a high priority. Numerous CPG trends around the world are combining to add new layers of complexity over an already complicated atmosphere for CPG manufacturers. Indeed, today’s producers face unprecedented challenges, including smaller segmented batch sizes, expectations of shorter time-to-market, and increased regulation. These are new challenges requiring innovative solutions.

MES helps the CPG industries achieve compliance with regulatory authorities, including GMP and HACCP requirements along with FDA mandates. As well, compliance with anti-counterfeiting requirements.

Smaller batches targeting niche consumer requirements means that manufacturing systems must be flexible enough to accommodate frequent line or product changeovers without negatively impacting production performance and compliance. MES technology is helping manufacturers to optimize development, resource planning and supply chain efficiency when adapting their operations to meet the needs of smaller production runs.

The thought of digital transformation of the production process and integrating technology into their company may seem expensive but also daunting.

With RTS, we start by looking at your business objectives to determine the manufacturing execution system (MES) requirements and value roadmap. We, along with your production performance and compliance Team, conduct brainstorming/blueprint sessions to develop the Digital Transformation roadmap to deliver on the objectives. Manufacturing in the CPG space can be complex, for example: recipe management, batching, blending, weigh&dispense, traceability, packaging, all while maintaining benchmark yield levels and compliance.

For CPG manufacturers, an end-to-end MES could be used to shift your company culture towards one of continuous improvement, deliver digital transformation and actionable intelligence. These are the initial steps to creating the “Intelligent Factory”, and when we intimately connect the intelligent factory to the enterprise business system, we foster the potential of an “Intelligent Enterprise”.

How Can MES Software Optimize a Shop Floor?

The shop floor is one of the most critical components of a manufacturing company. It’s where the magic happens. After all, its where raw material turns into finished product. However, machines break, batch times run longer than planned and human error is not uncommon. Without a well-oiled shop floor, a company cannot continue to outperform competitors.

To stay ahead of the curve, manufacturers need a solution that will help their employees work smarter and more efficiently. That’s where MES software comes into play.

SAP MES solutions provide the tools to help any manufacturing team run the shop floor smoothly, strategically, while maximizing profitability. The ability to make quick, confident decisions in real-time is the key to staying competitive. This is impossible with traditional spreadsheet-based systems or siloed point solution approaches.

MES software can do more for CPG manufacturing companies than traditional management approaches. It has the ability to:

Provide real time visibility to production and process anomalies.
Foster continuous improvement and optimize your shop floor.
Capture electronic signatures or employee biometrics.
Track and trace materials throughout the process.
Identify issues or potential problems before they happen.
Deliver a holistic production data lake for AI/ML analytics.
Integrate easily with existing systems.
Empower employees with the data and insights to make manufacturing smarter.
Remove non-value adding actions and anecdotal evidence of losses.
Reduce compliance risks via human error.

There are problems that companies face industry-wide, many of which can be remedied with an MES solution. Let’s take a look at a few of the most common issues CPG manufacturers face to determine how MES software can help.

Problem 1: Production Costs Are Rising

Food manufacturers are facing undeniable global economic uncertainty. The cost of raw materials is rising, along with global labor shortages.

CPG companies are facing undeniable global economic uncertainty. The cost of raw materials is rising, shorter lead times, increased product diversity, reduced retailer inventories, along with global skilled labor shortages.

Human error can also have a drastic effect on product suitability.

Every cost increase directly impacts manufacturers’ bottom line. So, what can be done?

When it comes to raw materials the best thing manufacturers can do is to make sure their shop floor and overall operations are consistent, efficient, minimal downtime and maximize raw material or yield.

In terms of labor, we have no choice but to do more with less. We must empower staff with sharp tools that help get the job done quickly and right the first time.

An MES solution, fulfilling your manufacturing business objectives, can quickly and easily analyze performance and trends based on shifts, crews, individuals, materials, equipment, production lines, products, and packaging, to drive operational improvements.

The right MES software can identify opportunities for improvement when it comes to performance, product innovation as well as bottlenecks on the factory floor. With this technology, manufacturers are able to analyze product costs relative to targets to better gauge overall cost and profit analysis.

With MES software, end-to-end yield tracking is more accessible. Companies can identify causes of yield, delays and labor loss from production line operations to final assembly in order to reduce manufacturing costs. This also helps to improve the overall plan attainment.

Problem 2: Integrating Technology Comes With a Steep Learning Curve

Adopting technology can be a challenge for many companies, not everyone has the tech-savvy resources, at times the willingness to change needs to be overcome.

How are CPG manufacturers supposed to keep up with the sweeping change?

Selecting an SAP MII, ME or DM solution that is tightly integrated with the SAP business system to achieve an Intelligent Enterprise. CPG manufacturers need an MES solution that can not only fit into their current processes but improve them.

MES delivers features that help manufacturers work smarter, not harder.

The SAP MES allows companies to do the following easily:

Deliver smaller batches to suit diverse consumer groups.
Provide counterfeit protection.
React to problems and implement new solutions faster.
Drive continuous improvement company-wide.
Measure factors like downtime, labor, plan attainment.
With SAP’s highly flexible solution companies can remove disparate band-aid solutions for a more efficient and holistic shop floor.
Gain transparency across the company.

SAP ME or DM provides complete role-specific views and offers multiple languages for its users. Also, there’s no coding or programming required; it’s a complete out-of-the-box solution.

Embracing Technology Will Ensure Survival

For most CPG organizations, there’s an existing mentality that integrating technology into business is complicated and invasive, SAP MES delivers high integration capabilities that enable to NOT “rip and replace” but migrate into the shop floor landscape in a paced value add controlled fashion.

For example, meeting todays retailer demands from bulk stores to dollar stores, while servicing higher-end organic retailers and specialty consumer segments is putting tremendous pressure on CPG operations. Without the use of the latest technology, the capability to profitability perform is next to impossible to achieve when using manual systems.

The goal of adding software to your shop floor is to increase margin by producing more via reducing production anomalies and by reducing costs. Though MES initially comes at an additional cost, the return on this investment is going to benefit the business in the long-term and add value to the bottom line. Being able to measure a tangible return is what sets a company up for lasting success.

Adding technology to the shop floor is only as complicated as the company makes it. Start by rolling out high value point solutions, like Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), or real time visibility to production key performance indicators via Andon boards. Or, a serialization system for genealogy or to record all production parameters for each production batch/lot. Once that becomes a natural part of your operation, more can be added to increase your efficiency.

Digitally Transform and Optimize Your CPG Production

Supercharge your continuous improvement program by gaining increased visibility, proactive alerts and tighter control over your operations. Real time, high-fidelity datapoints from every part of your manufacturing operation, builds the “data lake foundation”, allowing AI/ML/Deep Learning analytics to drive prescriptive insights with accurate information supporting good business decisions for every step of production.

Easy access to this comprehensive information (you can even ask Apple SIRI for your current shop floor performance info) allows you to quickly identify manufacturing losses, measure metrics such as plan attainment and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) KPI’s to boost efficiency across the production line. Thus, accelerating continuous improvement in your facility.

Quality Control Management

Traditional methods, because of their lack of control and consistency compared to more advanced technology, leave room for mis-interpretation and human error when it comes to quality control.

How can MES software help with quality control?

This technology eliminates error by:

Real time flagging and tracking of QA checks.
Immediate PASS/FAIL on QA checks to ensure only good quality moves to the next process.
SPC trending of critical parameters.
Alerting the right team or person if something needs attention.
Eliminating falsification, delayed data reporting and data manipulation.
Regular checks into operator workflows to remove the reliance on human watch and check processes.

MES software is built to optimize the shop floor by providing accurate data, real-time alerts, and more transparent communication between employees and teams. CPG manufacturers can’t afford to slip up on quality control and MES software minimizes the effort without compromising the diligence.