Process Manufacturing Guide

Manufacturing Process Management

Manufacturing Process Management, also called as MPM is a combination of various technological systems and methodologies which are used in manufacturing products. Many technologies like Computer aided Production Engineering (CAPE), Advanced Planning and Systems (APS), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Digital Mockup tools are used in Manufacturing Process Management. Please note that it is not necessary that all the tools for an MPM initiative.

How does Manufacturing Process Management work?

The critical aspect of MPM (Manufacturing Process Management) is maintenance of a central repository. The central repository works to ensure that all the data for the manufacturing activities are maintained. The maintenance module is known as Manufacturing Data Management (MDM).
The data critical for every manufacturing process is known as EBOM also called as Engineering Bill of Material. MPM correlates with EBOM to create MBOM (Manufacturing Bill of Material). MBOM is process oriented and is created with the Bill of Process (BOP).
MPM, EBOM, MBOM and BOP work with the tools, machines and resources to form the 3PR Data (Product, Process, Plant and Resources). This effective integration ensures that alternative production line scenarios are explored which allows production lines to be more cost-effective by cutting down lead times and reducing Work in Progress Inventories.

What is Bill of Material?

The term corresponding to describe the parts list of components need to complete a saleable product is known as Bill of Material. Let us take the example of a Television set. The end product is Television which needs to be packed up in a wooden cardboard box for the customers. Semiconductor devices, chassis, Picture Tubes etc are hardware components used to build the Television set. The Bill of Materials would include all the components involved in the making of the Television set and the components involved in the packing of the Television set.

Depending on what they refer to BOM is categorized into Modular BOM and Configurable BOM. Modular BOM is generally used for the description of sub-assemblies. The BOM can be displayed in three different formats - Single-level BOM, Indented BOM and Modular BOM.

The knowledge of Manufacturing Process Management would be complete if we study the correlated topics and technologies in equal depth. The topics of interest to a typical MPM module would be - Production Process Planning, Factory Layout Planning and Analysis, Mixed Model Line Balancing, Process Simulation tools, Resource Planning, Computer Aided Manufacturing, Time and Cost Estimates, Computer Aided Quality Assurance.

The interesting point about these topics is that all of them tools that need to be understood for a successful Manufacturing Process Management initiative.