3 Operations Areas Where Tech Can Help Manufacturers Survive Peak Seasons

Peak seasons are when many organizations look to meet their annual revenue goals in just a few months’ time. However, from global supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, economic volatility and much more, manufacturers have learned to brace for impact as they work to fulfill their customers' growing needs.

The solution to fortifying operations during these times lies in three tech-enriched areas: predictive maintenance, quality management and production planning.

Let’s examine a few examples of places where technology can help manufacturers remain smooth and efficient during peak seasons.

1. Predictive Maintenance

Machine learning, a subset of AI, has great potential within the industry. One area where the power of both technologies can shine is predictive maintenance. Instead of leaving downtime or machine failure up to chance, predictive maintenance tools allow manufacturers to get ahead of potential delays and damages, saving them both time and money. Thanks to the equipment-specific insights afforded by ML and the sheer analytic capabilities of AI, manufacturers can be more proactive than ever during a peak season rush.

Imagine you’re a food manufacturer of a major holiday baked good. One of your machines—the one that cuts the dough into tiny trees—passed its manual maintenance check a few months ago but suddenly begins producing amorphous blobs of dough instead of crisp, clean cuts. Meanwhile, your customers continue to ramp up their holiday treat ordering. AI could have told you that, during an unseasonably warm day on the factory floor, the seeds of malfunction were planted—something easily missed by the human eye or by manual tracking. Predictive maintenance ensures that factory machinery is optimized before breakdowns occur, saving manufacturers from costly downtime—and weird holiday cookies.

2. Production Planning

Planning for future peak seasons means studying past mishaps and successes, and manufacturers can rely on technology to help understand previous seasons’ output, quality issues and other production data insights to make improvements.

Don’t fret—this will not create more work. When your software is connected to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, it acts like a personal assistant that remembers even the smallest details from your end-to-end operations. When this synergy exists in your manufacturing operations, the entire business will be informed of the status and progress of holiday operations.

3. Quality Management

During the busy times, focusing on quality management can help guide manufacturers through what might otherwise be a chaotic process: keeping pace with peak demand. Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a popular and time-tested metric for quantifying and evaluating the performance of shop-floor machinery, rated on a simple scale of 1 to 100. Keeping close tabs on OEE (and course-correcting accordingly) can help manufacturers prevent slowdowns, minimize scrapped product and meet customer demand. During the holiday season, the pressure is on and there’s little room for error; by optimizing quality through OEE, manufacturers can get production right the first time.

Manufacturers can also leverage computer vision to manage and improve their quality. This technology captures real-time visual data to detect what human eyes cannot. This data is then transmitted to a centralized monitoring platform along with recommended next steps, giving manufacturers the gift of contextualized insights. By augmenting human capabilities, computer vision helps manufacturers enhance their quality management and fulfill all orders (holiday-related or otherwise) with accuracy and excellence.

There will always be supply chain disruptions during peak sourcing times, labor issues to fulfill the holiday influx of product and economic volatility—but manufacturers can be confident in the aspects of their operations that they can control. The triad of predictive maintenance, production planning and quality management is a tried-and-true strategy to make the holidays stress-free for busy manufacturers. Thanks to advanced technology, manufacturers can ensure they’re putting their best foot forward.