FORCAM
Adding Efficacy to Shop Floor Operations

Automotive, aerospace and other behemoths employ expensive IT systems and machinery in factories but tying transactional data from the business layer to real-time information on the shop floor remains a challenge. While this age-old puzzle continues to baffle the manufacturing-heavy industries—a solution that would connect the boardroom to plants—and enable them to operate economically and efficiently has become an imperative. To this end, FORCAM is a frontrunner that transformed the shop floor into a smart factory for Daimler AG even before the dawn of Industry 4.0. Today, this global firm’s solutions deliver the performance of a traditional manufacturing execution system (MES) along with the added value of a futuristic Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solution to empower AUDI, BMW, Volkswagen, BorgWarner, and alike to enhance their manufacturing efficiency.

With its DNA in the automotive industry, FORCAM offers FORCAM FORCE^TM, an Industrial IoT solution which is built on four pillars: connectivity, metrics, analytics, and the business case. FORCAM believes that connectivity on the shop floor is the key to manufacturers, and the ability to connect fast and in a cost-effective way will help them lead the market. Thus, FORCAM FORCE^TM connects machines, sensors, assets, and devices on the plant floor with each other and with the business systems to unleash the power of IoT. FORCAM FORCE^TM is certified to integrate with SAP ERP and offers connectivity to all major ERP systems and other applications. FORCAM has recently entered into a global partnership with Infor. Such partnerships provide credibility that FORCAM FORCE^TM facilitates seamless connectivity between machines and business systems. “Smart factory is the future.Connectivity plays a pivotal role in realizing smart factory, and hence it’s the first pillar of FORCAM FORCE^TM,” remarks Mohamed Abuali, CEO–Americas, FORCAM.

As far as the metrics part is concerned, FORCAM FORCE^TM collects information, contextualizes machine data, and renders it for processing. Manufacturers can leverage reporting, visualization, and alert capabilities of FORCAM FORCE^TM to understand the performance of any shop floor asset. Using the solution, they can gain graphical representations of machine status and configure a user interface with drag and drop functionality.

It allows worldwide access via the web to all user group authorized data views and renders key metrics to stakeholders.

As analytics is crucial for business success, FORCAM FORCE^TM allows users to drill-down to numerous criteria such as the workplace, order, material, and personnel. They can compare operating states, cumulated error hit lists, and subsequently discern machine and plant performance.

Users can enjoy this out-of-the-box solution with templates ready for configuration. Deployment is fast and easy. Through these pre-configured templates, clients can analyze business parameters in improving the performance of the entire production.

Enriched with metrics and analytics, the clients can easily gain “proof of value”, which plays a critical role in running manufacturing operations defined by data-driven policies. They can manage order and labor data, perform dynamic scheduling, and track and trace birth certificates of all parts produced. Sandy Abraham, Head of Global Marketing and Brand Management says, “This is how we present the business case where we guarantee an improvement of 5 to 10 percent in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and uptime during a Proof of Value.”

In an instance, Audi AG, the German automobile manufacturer of luxury vehicles, was facing stiff competition in the stamping market and seeking a solution to improve on-time delivery and performance. After deploying FORCAM FORCE^TM, Audi could improve the stamping productivity in five facilities by more than 20 percent within a time span of 12 months. The client could also improve OEE, its ranking in Harbour Report, and surpass the competition.

“Industrial IoT is not just about the smart factory; it’s also about the smart product. And we are leading the way in this aspect,” quips Abuali.