Workflow management

Workflow management : Plant Integrate iT is an effective MES workflow management system for production-related processes. It is a database system that can be used to manage and monitor automatic and manual processes in the production environment. This includes, for example, order processing, quality control (sampling, etc.), support to logistics processes or the collection and provision of data generated during production and in its environment. This data is used as the basis for generating production-related reports and as a data source for higher-order systems. The Plant iT Workflow plug-in can only be used in combination with our MES Plant Integrate iT solution and therefore also with existing external process control systems.
The workflow management system can be used for the following MES areas:

• Warehouse and inventory management (e.g. product and material parameters, handling units, stock)
• Production management (e.g. administration of recipes and bills of materials, production logistics)
• Quality management (e.g. management of specified values)
• Maintenance and repairs (e.g. operating hours counter, machine maintenance, duty cycle counter)

Plant iT Workflow

The following example functions illustrate how Plant iT Workflow can be used in production plants:

• Merchandise reception
  • Individual configuration of the goods receipt flow
  • Digital registration of delivery notes
  • Integration of barcode readers and scales, with the possibility of using manual lists and checklists
  • Initiation of sampling and recording of laboratory values
  • Destination warehouse selection
  • Finalization of the goods receipt and transfer to the ERP system
• Control of orders
  • Partition of an ERP order in multilevel production processes
  • BOM breakdown into existing process structures (e.g., process orders and fill / pack orders)
  • Confirmation of the entry according to the ERP order structure
  • Grouping of multiple orders (identical production orders with different packing / packing orders)
• Replenishment control
  • Control and monitoring of orders and material replacements
  • Reference to bills of materials, material groups, or fixed material
  • Compatibility with various types of storage (eg raised shelves, block warehouses)
  • Integrated interfaces in stock management systems (e.g. SAP-EWM)
• Quality assessment
  • Automatic generation of inspection lots by lot size or by time, with indication of the elements to be inspected
  • Plant overview and status information, with integrated specification management and remanufacturing workflow
• Packaging / packing orders
  • Grouping packing / packing orders based on production orders
  • Delivery note printing
  • Creation, modification and deletion of production orders and fill / pack orders
• Energy management
  • Energy data collection
  • Creation of consumption reports
• Indicators and OEE
  • Data acquisition according to WS Food
  • Visualization of key indicators and the most important plant data

Workflow management

The Workflow Management Systems , control and management of business processes or BPM (Business Process Management), which are usually included in the Document Management tools , ECM or CSP , have the objective of integrating people, computers and processes in order to reduce time and increase control in the execution of any work.

A workflow can be measured manually or computerized, although the most common is that both methods are integrated Starting from a workflow scheme, tasks and resources are organized through rules that facilitate and simplify the control of a certain process within a company .

The objective pursued with a workflow scheme is the maximum standardization of work processes with absolute control of each and every one of the steps of each task. By using software for this task, it is possible to take the work scheme from paper and manual control to a tool to control these processes from a computer.

The workflow management software, in addition to verifying that the steps followed are always the same, automates all possible actions in each of these steps.

This automation can include from automatic sending of notices and alerts to automatic creation of documents and emails according to templates or even integration of different software systems (for example, indicating to other software that it has to bill a service when a certain step of the process is reached)

How does a Workflow Management Software work?

The workflow control implements allow you to establish the steps of the workflow using different kinds of diagrams. Here is an example of the diagram to control a commercial offer process in Docuo document management and process control software :

The diagram shows the four states (circles) in which an offer can be and the three transitions (arrows) that allow the state to change.

Users create business offers in the system and proceed through the workflow by “changing the state” of these documents. The system can be configured to perform automatic tasks when the status of a process is changed (for example, sending the email to the customer with your offer when “submitting offer”) or when a status is spent for a long time (for example, notifying the sales team when the offer has been in the “Sent to customer” status for a long time).

The following video summarizes the operation of the Docuo Workflow Management Software:

The management of Commercial Offers is just an example, the Workflow tools can be used to normalize and assist in any process: Management of Support Tickets for Customer Service, Document Approval, Sales process control, Human Resources Selection Processes , Complaints, Claims and many others.

In addition, you can find more useful articles at thewebscience