Essay Example on PLC, Industrial Robots, FMS and ERP

Introduction

An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is an information system that helps in the management of the business; these can be used from production, logistics, inventory and distribution to accounting. An ERP system is suitable for all types of companies, both multinationals, and SMEs (Ho, Kumar, & Shiwakoti, 2018). Also, thanks to the different customizable modules, any company, regardless of the different processes that it has or the sector it belongs to, can customize its ERP. They allow to manage the factory processes (planning, production, distribution, storage, services) associated with accounting, which implies: first, a great saving of time and resources; and, also, facilitate the exhaustive control of the entire manufacturing process to optimize the performance of your business to the maximum.

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An FMS (flexible manufacturing system) allows retailers to better focus on their customers and their business while FMS focuses on numbers (Manglik, Ram, & Ahluwalia, 2018). FMS provides company owners daily and weekly financial reports that help in the improvement of the management of their business day after day.

A PLC (programmable logic controller) offers industrial automation solutions through the programming of PLC's. The advance in programming allows an improvement in the control of processes to achieve maximum control and efficiency. PLC's are prepared for multiple signals of inputs and outputs, both digital and analog, for extended temperature ranges, immunity to electrical noise and vibration resistance, in short, to be able to work properly to industrial environments (Alves, Das, & Morris, 2018). The use of PLC's requires having highly qualified technicians, being the technical capacity determinant to obtain not only functional products but also to add value to the processes. PLC's allow communication with computers provided with industrial supervision programs (SCADA's), providing the field data. This communication is made through an industrial network.

Industrial robots are machines that perform tasks that require repetitive effort, precision, endurance, speed, and strength. It can move tools, special devices, parts, and other items. Opting for an industrial robot increases productivity and reduces company costs. In addition to traditional industrial robots, there are also collaborative robots, those that work in partnership with humans, which brings more comfort and safety to employees (Huang, Hu, Wu, & Zeng, 2018). Industrial robots are often distinguished by an articulated system similar to a human arm. This arm can move, in some cases, on several axes and is provided with a tool specific to the operation to be performed: the effector member.

ERP use in Manufacturing System

A manufacturing ERP must have additional features to a traditional ERP. In the manufacturing sector, the agility in obtaining information is critical when it comes to being able to act on time in the manufacturing process. The traceability of the entire process, from obtaining raw material, is key to optimize all available resources and automate quality control. When working with independent planning systems, it is complicated to obtain and collect data, since reports are usually scarce (Ho et al., 2018). When the information is not connected, business decisions are complicated due to the lack of communication of the different blocks. Thanks to manufacturing software, global control of the whole process are achieved, allowing to adjust the production to the demand and, in the medium/long term, to increase both the quality and the profitability significantly.

The ERP is successful in business management because they allow linking and defining a large number of business processes facilitating the flow of data between them. It allows the integration of the operations of the company, thus increasing the productivity of the company. An ERP system will be responsible for collecting information on the different tasks carried out by the company in all its departments, thus providing a unique data integration. The main characteristic of an ERP is that it is an integrated system, and although the different areas of the company only work with certain modules, everything will be integrated into the same software with access to a centralized database available for help to optimize the different tasks of the company (Ho et al., 2018). Data is captured only once so that they are complete and available for the department that requires it. In this way, all the members of the company will be able to create, store and use the information of the common processes without having to waste time in requesting such data. This has a positive impact on the daily tasks because it is guaranteed that the tasks carried out using the information contained in the ERP will be correct (Ho et al., 2018). A monthly financial statement or an inventory analysis will be done without running the risk of errors such as occur if other data management systems such as spreadsheets are used.

An ERP system offers integration with Business Intelligence solutions. It automates company processes and allows the integration of different databases of a business in a single program. It also increases efficiency due to the common user experience between the different business management processes. The use of ERP software helps the operations and production department of companies to buy, manage stock, production and in the evolution of sales. In this way, it helps the company in managing its tasks efficiently, reducing time and costs, which translates into the optimization of processes and therefore greater productivity.

References

Alves, T., Das, R., & Morris, T. (2018). Embedding encryption and machine learning intrusion prevention systems on programmable logic controllers. IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, 10(3), 99-102.

Huang, J., Hu, P., Wu, K., & Zeng, M. (2018). Optimal time-jerk trajectory planning for industrial robots. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 121, 530-544.

Ho, T., Kumar, A., & Shiwakoti, N. (2018). Using system dynamics approach to examine the impact of ERP and Lean on manufacturing performance. In IEOM 2018 (pp. 350-357). IEOM Society International.

Manglik, M., Ram, M., & Ahluwalia, D. (2018). A Study of Flexible Manufacturing System with Multiple Failures. In Advanced Numerical Simulations in Mechanical Engineering (pp. 96-117). IGI Global.