Database Management of Manufacturing Work
Instructions
For many years now, high-level manufacturing information
(Bills of Materials, Routings, Operations, Work Orders, etc.) has been
maintained in a relational database format in a variety of MRP/ERP systems. This organization of information allows for
management of the information as discrete “objects.” This structure offers several advantages:
- Information
is organized in a structure that easily lends itself to manufacturing
–everyone understands the philosophy that a Part is made of Materials
that are assembled in discrete Operations.
- Information
managed as objects can easily be reused from part to part; and,
- Information
managed as objects can easily be tracked for revision history at a
discrete level.
The modern day versions of these systems often offer
end-to-end management of materials and resources through an organization.
However most, if not all, stop short of managing the core information that
manufacturing organizations need every day on the shop floor to build or
assemble their products.
Managing these work instructions (WIs) has historically been left to
conventional text-editors or desktop publishing software systems. The major difficulty with non-relational /
free-form text editors is that they do not have the inherent “structure” to
accommodate manufacturing information.
It is left to the user to build this structure into the
documentation. As a result, authors
spend a significant fraction of their time on non-value added tasks, i.e.,
organization and formatting of information, as opposed to focusing on content
and knowledge capture.
Sequence allows the information common to manufacturing
operations to be extended to include the detailed work instructions needed to carry
out the manufacturing process in the widely accepted structure found in ERP/MRP
systems. Information is once again
organized in a structure that easily lends itself to manufacturing – everyone
understands the philosophy that a Part is
made of Materials that are assembled
in discrete Operations by carrying
out a series of specific Work
Instructions that contain both a Text
and Media component. By again storing this information as discrete
objects in a relational database model, information can be reused, controlled and
disseminated in a very structured fashion.
