The country may be smack dab in the middle of a recession, but one sector of the economy is bouncing back. According to a November 2008 CNN Money report, “Industrial production grew in October, after September produced the worst dropoff in factory output in 62 years.” This good news came courtesy of the Federal Reserve, a governmental offshoot that doesn't have much to brag about these days.

Indeed, manufacturing rose by its highest amount in nine years, making October 2008 the largest monthly increase in factory output since October 1999. But manufacturers shouldn't start celebrating too quickly. The Federal Reserve report went on to point out, “Factory output in October only increased because production in September fell by a revised 3.7%. Though last month's industrial production rose from the previous month, it fell a substantial 4.1% from a year ago. Factory output in September fell 5.6% from September 2007.”

The report went on to caution, “Manufacturing output increased 0.6% in October, and the factory operating rate rose slightly to 73.8%. But factory operations are still nearly six percentage points below the average rate from the 35-year period from 1972–2007.”

Hope still exists, however, “Capacity utilization for all industries, a measure that tracks the percentage of factories in use, posted a seasonally adjusted increase of 0.9 percentage point to 76.4%. Economists had expected a increase to 76.5%.” Fortunately for manufacturers, they were a key driver of this marginal growth.

So how can manufacturers keep up the momentum of this momentary upswing on factory operations output? They need to get in better touch with their factory floor. How can they do this? Well, lean times call for lean measures and factory operations software can take lean manufacturing to whole new levels.

A real-time factory floor data collection system utilizes touch screen capabilities, to free up manufacturers' time so that they can focus on more urgent issues: like keeping their factory output momentum up to speed. Such a software solution puts everything a manufacturer needs to efficiently manage his or her factory floor at the fingertips. With built-in work in progress tracking, job tracking and factory floor control capabilities, it's a factory floor manager's dream come true. Add on modules for labor collection and job sequencing, and factory operations are further streamlined.

In fact, with its easy-to-install and intuitive push-button touch screen user interface, factory management software lends machine integration and greater visibility to shop floor jobs. Indeed, lean manufacturing is based on visible feedback and floor level management, both of which a reputable factory management software provides.

How does the software accomplish all these factory operation aims? As an Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) and finite scheduling system, it visually improves the sequencing of production (and raw materials) through a PC-based system that is completely interfaced with most ERP and MRP systems. It can also monitor machine cycle counts with a customizable human machine interface HMI and provides a real-time view of the factory floor for more accurate and timely asset analysis. Finally, it provides the underlying data for metrics and key performance indicators KPI such as labor efficiency, bottleneck analysis, operation time standard analysis and OEE.