Industry Trends

On May 26, 2020, the 2020 China Printing Industry Internet Innovation Festival - Cloud Summit, jointly organized by the China Printing Science and Technology Research Institute and KeYin Media, and hosted by KeYin Network, with Alibaba providing strategic support, was successfully launched online. At the event, Sun Qingsong, the general manager of Zhejiang Yamingwei Printing and Packaging Co., Ltd., delivered a speech titled "Data Management of Printing and Packaging Enterprises in 2020". The following is the summary of the speech. 

All along, we have been continuously striving for the green and environmentally-friendly, technological innovation and intelligent manufacturing development in the printing and packaging industry. I will share some simple insights on enterprise data management with you from several aspects. 

The management goals of printing and packaging enterprises 

The core content of the management objective 

On a broad scale, I believe that the management goals of packaging enterprises should be divided into two main parts: production and organizational management. Specifically, they can be broken down into six aspects: quality, efficiency, cost, customer relationship handling, employee professional competence and assessment, and enterprise organizational culture. If an enterprise can start from the small details and focus on these basic six aspects, extending from professional competence, cost-effectiveness, etc. to team building and the formation of corporate culture, then this enterprise will be able to achieve long-term success. 

The actual gap between the ideal goal and the reality 

Where does the gap lie between the management goals of the aforementioned packaging enterprises and the actual situation? 

All enterprises share some common problems and perceptions, which is that the current business environment they are facing is extremely challenging. When the number of orders surges, enterprises consider how to fulfill the orders; when there is a shortage of orders, they are concerned about how to reduce production costs and make profits. Under the interference of these issues, in the actual management process, enterprises are likely to overlook some things, including product quality, production efficiency and investment costs. 

In such situations, many enterprises tend to ignore these data. However, only by taking data analysis as the starting point can enterprises conduct their own evaluations based on the situation and have the possibility of improvement. Otherwise, enterprises will be unable to find the appropriate starting point from either the perspective of employees or the economic improvement, management operation logic, etc. of the enterprise. 

This is the gap between the goals set by the packaging enterprises and the actual situation in their production and operation management. 

ERP + MES, Data-driven Management 

So, how should enterprises drive their management through dataization? 

For an enterprise to achieve data-based management, the first step is to have the appropriate tools. In the past, the approach was to collect the production capacity reports filled out by employees at all levels during the production process and then conduct statistics. This method mainly focused on data statistics, but in fact, the data was not effectively utilized or analyzed, and there was no way to apply it to enterprise improvement and other tasks. 

Therefore, enterprises must be driven by data. Currently, it is the era of big data. In terms of data management, enterprises must first have appropriate management tools. Manually copying data will lose the objectivity of the data. Therefore, in the early stage of production, the management tools should be put into operation and integrated management should be carried out through ERP and MES systems. 

Build an enterprise data management system 

Perhaps many enterprises have already installed and utilized the two systems, but they have not integrated them. In fact, ERP is a static management system that reflects the relationship of the supply chain. It is essentially a financial system and reflects data such as production efficiency, capacity, productivity, and quality within the workshop. 

The MES system utilizes industrial control to achieve information management in the workshop, enabling the visualization and controllability of the production process. The MES system collects data from the ERP system and records production, quality, and other data from the workshop's "black box", thereby conducting objective processing. 

By integrating the ERP and MES systems, a relatively complete production execution system was formed. In this execution system, the efficiency of the enterprise's production equipment, the processing speed, and the quality of the products produced online all receive effective feedback. The data during the production process, including real-time kanban management, is also included. This management not only meets the requirements of production rhythm but also enables the production site personnel to obtain intuitive and visual feedback on the production situation. 

Yamingwei's exploration of data management 

During the production process, we will constantly monitor the processing speed and price of each production team's equipment. The reflection of performance utilization rate is also more intuitive compared to the past. By automatically collecting the performance utilization rate data of each machine and each production team, based on the feedback of utilization rate, we can deduce the improvement directions for each production team of the company on a daily and even monthly basis. This is the effect we pursue in the cost-driven management operation model, and these contents can be directly captured through the MES system. In addition, including the actual processing time of products, the actual downtime time, and whether the equipment is faulty, these data also provide possibilities for improving subsequent production. 

In summary, the data management of the MES system is to open the production "black box", thereby tracking the entire production process and basing decisions on data. With data, there is the possibility of improvement, and with improvement, there is the possibility of achieving lean production. The ultimate goal of all this is to enable enterprises to manage the relationships among quality, cost, and efficiency properly, so as to survive in the harsh market competition. 

Over the years, Yamingwei has been continuously pursuing the path of implementing data-based management. Digitalization is the prerequisite for data-based management. Only by achieving enterprise digitalization can we further manage the enterprise through data. Moreover, the construction of a digital factory cannot be separated from the process and standardization of the enterprise. For the entire operational process of the enterprise, only by solidifying it into standards can automation be achieved through equipment, thereby reducing the human cost of the enterprise. 

In addition, for enterprise development, it should be based on the customer-oriented approach. For the printing and packaging industry with relatively low R&D investment, cost is a competitive advantage that every enterprise must establish. Therefore, for different customers, there are different requirements in the business strategy. And data-driven operation is the key to helping enterprises solve these pain points and difficulties. 

Finally, regarding how to implement digital management, there is actually no standardized answer. Based on experience, I believe that packaging enterprises should collaborate with more professional third-party technology companies to discuss and explore. This does not mean that it will cost a certain amount of money; what is important is to find the truly suitable methods and paths for the development of the enterprise with the help of the third party. 

Thoughts on the Intelligent Transformation of Packaging Enterprises 

Overall, the printing industry is mostly a discrete production sector, which means there is still a considerable gap between the realization of intelligence and the current state of the industry. Nevertheless, we must still actively explore and attempt. The first step that can be taken now is to achieve a digital factory. We need to extract the efficiency data that was previously impossible to track from the workshop, conduct analysis, and use these data as the starting point to drive management through dataization, thereby improving and enhancing the efficiency of the enterprise. 

In response to this, I suggest that everyone: 

First, in the early stage, it is essential to attach great importance to basic tasks such as processization and standardization. 

Secondly, make good use of the limited resources. Through the MES system, collect the basic operating data of the equipment to solve the efficiency problems in the production process. If the enterprise's budget permits, the logistics and transportation within the factory can also be improved to enhance the enterprise's logistics efficiency and further prevent errors in logistics transportation. 

Finally, enterprises can also make improvements to their factories and implement standardized warehousing. These are also the current development plans of Yamingwei, and we hope they can be helpful to everyone. 

May in the post-pandemic era, our packaging industry be able to have a brighter future!