Essilor Sees Higher Manufacturing Agility
Faced with rapidly changing business needs, Essilor had to improve its manufacturing system's flexibility. Current applications were not built to support initiatives such as Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma. Lacking detailed visibility, it was difficult to track and trace production processes and material flows for improved operational excellence. It was clear a new system was needed to improve agility, provide real-time visibility and support continuous quality and process improvement.
As the No. 1 ranked designer and manufacturer of corrective lenses, Essilor sought to extend its competitive advantage by implementing a system for continuous improvement capable of identifying and sharing best practices for operational excellence. At the same time, this new system had to be sufficiently flexible to manage the complexity of producing 450,000 products across 15 facilities. Essilor continuously strives to exceed customer expectations by offering a higher quality product with greater personalization, so the new system must also support these initiatives.
A Platform for MOM
Essilor selected Apriso's FlexNet, a platform-based MOM solution, to help improve agility, visibility and operational performance across manufacturing operations. FlexNet has been operational at Essilor since 2004. FlexNet manages and executes lens production at Essilor's Mexico plant, with globally integrated warehouse and distribution functions. The applications are operational at 12 Essilor locations across the globe, including five manufacturing sites and three distribution centers; three sites use FlexNet for OEE; four sites use it as part of SPC computations. Essilor sees its Mexico plant as a "core" deployment, representing a standardized platform for future global implementations. Operational and IT improvements can be extended by making this set of best practices available for replication at other Essilor plants.
Improved Operational Performance
"An immediate benefit to implementing FlexNet has been real-time visibility to operations, helping to enhance operational performance while reducing IT costs," explains Loic Sanson, Manufacturing, Engineering & Quality manager for Worldwide Supply Chain Projects at Essilor.
According to Essilor's production team, "FlexNet spans operations to provide real-time visibility and actionable intelligence, enabling improved performance and faster decision-making ability. Group leaders, supervisors and engineers take advantage of a user-friendly interface to help simplify common daily production tasks. Every day users trust more to the system, helping to accelerate response times to frequently changing customer requirements, integrating flexibility across operations for a win-win situation."
Greater Visibility to Operational Performance
By creating a management dashboard in the solution, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are now easily visible to track operational and inventory metrics; data is automatically updated, in real-time, as production, market or competitive shifts occur; appropriate thresholds are quickly adjusted to ensure relevance. Graphical visualizations support quick "drill-down" visibility, resulting in faster issue resolution and greater up-time. Increased data has helped improve baseline performance, contributing to more efficient root cause analysis and higher overall quality at a lower cost, ultimately resulting in higher customer satisfaction.
Improved WIP Control
Recognizing an opportunity to minimize inventory levels within work-in-process (WIP) and finished goods, Essilor's Mexico plant has leveraged FlexNet to automate production, inventory and quality inspection processes, helping improve efficiency and stock accuracy. Reason codes now support improved tracking, flexibility and transparency to inventory measurement and reporting. "Palletization and quality assurance processes have been combined at our Mexico facility, freeing one employee per shift, compared to our legacy system that lacked sufficient inventory control and new process integration capabilities," continues Loic Sanson.
Reduced IT and Support Costs
With the introduction of a synchronized platform for operations execution, the cost of IT ownership has declined. One example is a simplification of support and systems maintenance processes. A centralized support team is now a single point of entry for IT issue resolution and future system requirements. "Standardized processes have enabled faster issue resolution, helping us to reduce IT costs," says Loic Sanson.
Elevated User Satisfaction
Essilor conducted a user satisfaction survey at their plant in Mexico once FlexNet production was live. Overall, employees were very satisfied, based on improved speed and accuracy, in addition to a more user-friendly interface than the prior system. With Essilor's platform-based approach to MOM, a solution for continuous improvement is now in place that has simplified the burden of searching for accurate operational data, yielding improved manufacturing operational performance.
As the No. 1 ranked designer and manufacturer of corrective lenses, Essilor sought to extend its competitive advantage by implementing a system for continuous improvement capable of identifying and sharing best practices for operational excellence. At the same time, this new system had to be sufficiently flexible to manage the complexity of producing 450,000 products across 15 facilities. Essilor continuously strives to exceed customer expectations by offering a higher quality product with greater personalization, so the new system must also support these initiatives.
A Platform for MOM
Essilor selected Apriso's FlexNet, a platform-based MOM solution, to help improve agility, visibility and operational performance across manufacturing operations. FlexNet has been operational at Essilor since 2004. FlexNet manages and executes lens production at Essilor's Mexico plant, with globally integrated warehouse and distribution functions. The applications are operational at 12 Essilor locations across the globe, including five manufacturing sites and three distribution centers; three sites use FlexNet for OEE; four sites use it as part of SPC computations. Essilor sees its Mexico plant as a "core" deployment, representing a standardized platform for future global implementations. Operational and IT improvements can be extended by making this set of best practices available for replication at other Essilor plants.
Improved Operational Performance
"An immediate benefit to implementing FlexNet has been real-time visibility to operations, helping to enhance operational performance while reducing IT costs," explains Loic Sanson, Manufacturing, Engineering & Quality manager for Worldwide Supply Chain Projects at Essilor.
According to Essilor's production team, "FlexNet spans operations to provide real-time visibility and actionable intelligence, enabling improved performance and faster decision-making ability. Group leaders, supervisors and engineers take advantage of a user-friendly interface to help simplify common daily production tasks. Every day users trust more to the system, helping to accelerate response times to frequently changing customer requirements, integrating flexibility across operations for a win-win situation."
Greater Visibility to Operational Performance
By creating a management dashboard in the solution, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are now easily visible to track operational and inventory metrics; data is automatically updated, in real-time, as production, market or competitive shifts occur; appropriate thresholds are quickly adjusted to ensure relevance. Graphical visualizations support quick "drill-down" visibility, resulting in faster issue resolution and greater up-time. Increased data has helped improve baseline performance, contributing to more efficient root cause analysis and higher overall quality at a lower cost, ultimately resulting in higher customer satisfaction.
Improved WIP Control
Recognizing an opportunity to minimize inventory levels within work-in-process (WIP) and finished goods, Essilor's Mexico plant has leveraged FlexNet to automate production, inventory and quality inspection processes, helping improve efficiency and stock accuracy. Reason codes now support improved tracking, flexibility and transparency to inventory measurement and reporting. "Palletization and quality assurance processes have been combined at our Mexico facility, freeing one employee per shift, compared to our legacy system that lacked sufficient inventory control and new process integration capabilities," continues Loic Sanson.
Reduced IT and Support Costs
With the introduction of a synchronized platform for operations execution, the cost of IT ownership has declined. One example is a simplification of support and systems maintenance processes. A centralized support team is now a single point of entry for IT issue resolution and future system requirements. "Standardized processes have enabled faster issue resolution, helping us to reduce IT costs," says Loic Sanson.
Elevated User Satisfaction
Essilor conducted a user satisfaction survey at their plant in Mexico once FlexNet production was live. Overall, employees were very satisfied, based on improved speed and accuracy, in addition to a more user-friendly interface than the prior system. With Essilor's platform-based approach to MOM, a solution for continuous improvement is now in place that has simplified the burden of searching for accurate operational data, yielding improved manufacturing operational performance.