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Knowledge Management Pays Off
SKF realizes benefits from linking shop-floor acquired data with enterprise business planning
Rick DeMeis -- Design News, February 25, 2004
Too much data is a dangerous thing if it overwhelms an industrial enterprise, according to SKF's Scott Brady, general manager of Decision Support Systems. In a speech at the National Manufacturing Week Reliability Pavilion he outlined how the company is avoiding "data overload" by use of its @ptitudeTM industrial decision support system (www.skfreliability.com)
Application of the method has allowed the company to preserve workers' corporate knowledge to benefit both SKF and its customers by making data accessible to avoid reinventing the wheel. The system also links reliability information on systems and components to business planning functions so that decisions are made with maximum information from the field. Such efforts can ensure analyses are consistent both across the plant and across the company-and that the knowledge is applied to best effect company wide, even in locations where skill levels may be below the norm.
Other benefits realized from applying knowledge with the @ptitude system include reduced training time for new employees, said Brady. Maintenance resources are better utilized, he adds, highlighting features such as automation of the analysis and decision making process. For example, limit-flags trigger automatic email notification of problems to responsible individuals, which cuts downtime by earlier notification to initiate corrective action.
"Knowledge is captured across multiple disciplines, such as maintenance,
reliability, and operations," says Brady. "Captured knowledge, for a spindle for
instance, is now distributed locally or globally," which he says can help avoid
"manufacturing insanity-never repeating the same process but expecting the same
result."
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Scott Brady highlights the @ptitiude industrial decision support system. He notes its decision tree "has been filled with practical knowledge based on experience, not folklore," such as doing it one way only because the last person did it that way. |
