Over the last decade, the digital economy has upended operations and rearranged market processes in various industries. The manufacturing sector is no exception— evolving like never before. Today, several tech-savvy leaders are deploying digital solutions to supplement shop floor productivity and security along with meeting the demands of new services and models. eFlex Systems has been at the forefront of facilitating this change by transforming manufacturers into a digital enterprise. The firm aids its clients in designing and implementing advanced technology and MES solutions for manufacturers.

“Whether it’s one specific assembly line or an entire area in a manufacturing plant, we can develop and implement MES solutions for everyone,” says George Jewell, VP of eFlex Systems.

With latest web-based technology, eFlex enables manufacturers to maximize transparency and visibility of the entire manufacturing process with the eFlex manufacturing platform. Once the supporting applications deployed, manufacturers can garner actionable data insights in real-time. They are also allocated large overhead monitors, PCs, or mobile device to keep track of the KPIs and capture individual task cycle times to process images.

The Prowess of eFlex

Jewell elucidates about one of eFlex products—providing a comprehensive picture of the firm’s capabilities. eFlex’s work instruction software—Job Element Monitoring (JEM)—enables its clients to offer job instructions in workstations and for individual tasks and provides parameters and instructions determined by model or product BOM. The product is inbuilt with a drag and drop interface which mitigates the installation time and facilitates immediate operability. It also reduces the errors when a specific task is conducted and will enable operators to reduce unnecessary downtime involved in manufacturing operations. Powered with BI and ML, JEM renders the crucial data points of all the functioning stations and subsequently enables operators to navigate the cause of problems. They can further find the station with most rejected products and recommend appropriate measures to reduce it. All these processes can be done without the need for data scientist. Additionally, automated notifications through ML and event triggers notify stakeholders that machines are beginning to fail or operations will overcycle.

“Our software is easy to use, and enables users throughout multiple disciplines in the organization to visualize plant performance, act on issues (before they arise) and measure improvement after acting.” With close to three decades of market experience and a cross-functional team having 90 years of collective market experience in assembly operations, the firm develops innovative concepts, proven methods, and techniques, that leads to beneficial results for its clients. One example involved a large automotive manufacturer to modify the rate of a line (400 engines a day to 600 engines a day) over a weekend.

Leaving a Trail

Over the years, eFlex has established several partnerships to expand its product capabilities continually. Recently, the firm built a strategic alliance with Atlas Copco to add more capability to JEM. With the association, the firm integrated Atlas Copco’s industrial fastening devices into JEM that can be used by its clients from the medical sector. Adding to this, the other noteworthy collaboration includes Cognex, Siemens, and Rockwell. Recently, eFlex has entered into an alliance with Turck to provide IP67 rated I/O which works with eFlex JEM application.

Forging ahead, the firm intends to continually deliver optimal software solutions for its clients and play a significant role in digitizing manufacturing operations. Jewell points out that there is a growing trend among manufacturers to store product images. “We are adding this JEM interface to our platform which will allow users to take and retrieve images associated to products by SN, batch and time. This can be done with a simple USB Webcam or high resolution camera. This contributes also the recent need for better product traceability,” says Jewell.