US among lowest-cost locations for manufacturing

While the U.S. greenback has markedly appreciated in the last year, the Boston Consulting Group’s Global Manufacturing Cost-Competitiveness Index shows that the U.S. remains one of the lowest-cost locations for manufacturing in the developed world. Productivity increases are largely responsible, and a key factor in this success is a relentless push to data-driven manufacturing.

Top-flight manufacturers understand that a convergence of connectivity, analytics and ubiquitous Internet devices creates opportunity for an industrial-strength, shop-floor-to-top-floor communications platform that provides real-time efficiency metrics. Specifically, a software-based machine monitoring platform should:

Machine monitoring allows plant managers to cost-effectively isolate productivity issues so everyone from the CEO to each individual machine operator can understand what must be done to maximize efficiency.

Mazak Corp. is a machine tool builder that leads by example. One offering is a 5-axis multitask machine, which the company produces at a rate of 200 units per month at its 800,000-sq.-ft. North American headquarters in Florence, Ky. Mazak’s quest for productivity gains lead to a search to improve manufacturing efficiency, particularly in regards to machine availability and associated downtime.

Mazak demonstrates the MERLIN shop-floor-to-top-floor communications platform and MTConnect at a recent Mazak conference. Image courtesy Memex.

Mazak’s IT department started the efficiency drive by implementing the MTConnect protocol to accurately determine machine availability by using OEE as a standard measurement.

Brian Papke, Mazak’s CEO, personally drove the project to show the machine tool industry the importance of moving toward data-driven manufacturing.