Here is an excerpt from our Decision Management Systems Platform Technologies Report on Manufacturing:
Manufacturing is another area where Decision Management Systems are being introduced. Many manufacturing operations are large scale with huge numbers of potential decisions to be made. As customers demand more customized products, organizations must also customize at scale. This means that tasks and work allocations that used to be identical across production runs must be customized and tweaked for different customers or batches. Decision Management Systems offer a new level of control.
What to make
One of the most basic decisions is that of what to make. When an organization manufacturers for stock, rather than specifically for an order, it must constantly choose what to make and what not to make, what colors to pick, what packaging sizes to use and so on. A Decision Management System can use predictions and forecasts, current stock levels and more to decide what is most appropriate to make at any given moment.
Allocation and configuration of machines
Especially in complex manufacturing situations, the allocation of work to a machine and the configuration of that workstream can be critical to the overall effectiveness of the line. Many machines might be capable, if configured correctly, of handling specific tasks and specific tasks might be assignable to many machines. Decision Management Systems can handle the complexity of this kind of situation, applying the rules that determine which machines can do what and combining them with predictions and even optimization to ensure maximized results.
Reducing manufacturing problems
In complex manufacturing scenarios there is a constant risk that problems might be introduced to the finished product. The wrong part may be used, something may be damaged by the production process or a task may take an unexpectedly long time. Using Decision Management Systems can reduce these problems. Systems can assign quality improvement actions to the QA team, replacing fixed check lists with dynamic “next best check” systems while also assigning supervisory and training resources for proactive mitigation of potential problems. Predictions of risk, rules about skill levels required and certifications and much more can be used to drive increasingly sophisticated decision-making on the production floor.
Read more in our Decision Management Systems Platform Technologies Report.