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Bayside Automation : Life Cycle Support Services Bayside Automation LLC is a leader provider of product design and manufacturing design services, as well as automated manufacturing systems. Its products and services help customers around the world reduce time to market, increase profitability, and maximize productivity on the manufacturing floor. Customers use Bayside Automation's complete suite of solutions including engineering consulting, technology, automation systems, and support services to develop, manufacture, and deliver new products more quickly to the marketplace. Its customers include companies in the electronics, healthcare, consumer goods, and automotive industries. Bayside Automation is ISO 9001 certified and is a division of Bayside Motion Group. The company is headquartered in Canonsburg, PA. Bayside Automation's Life Cycle Support Services program helps differentiate the company from its competition. John Musser, a Bayside senior program manager, says Life Cycle services expand the company's expertise beyond designing, building, and installing automation systems for its customers. "While each customer is different, they all want to be as efficient and productive as possible," notes Musser. "Life Cycle services are focused on helping them achieve and, in some cases, exceed manufacturing expectations." Bayside's Life Cycle Support Services includes several options where customers can select any or all of the full service offerings. The one stop shop for component and spare parts has replaced many customer storerooms for essential maintenance items that can be supported with next day service. The company's Field Service Department also provides professional and comprehensive assistance to emergency and routine maintenance needs. Installation assistance Musser says that some Bayside customers prefer to conduct the majority of installation work using their own technicians and engineers. Others prefer that Bayside complete a total turnkey installation including ramping up the equipment to the specified running rates, as well as conducting a final certification test. Operation and Maintenance training Bayside has a standard operation and maintenance training package that is included with every system. Bayside will provide training either at Bayside's facility before the equipment is shipped to the customer, or training at the customer location. Bayside provides both classroom and hands-on, factory floor training sessions for engineers, technicians, and maintenance personnel. Musser explains, "We make sure that the customer understands the operation and maintenance of their equipment before we sign off on any given project." Bayside also offers optional training services such as interactive CD based training manuals and video training. Service Maintenance information and schedules of preventative maintenance programs are a part of every Bayside project. However, in some cases, customers prefer Bayside professionals to provide these services on a regularly scheduled basis. Bayside's Life Cycle Support Services provides trained personnel onsite, full or part time, to provide ongoing maintenance, production support, and repairs as needed. Replacement parts A growing number of our customers are using Bayside's stockroom as an extension of their own, eliminating needless inventory where they know next day service will meet their needs. Every Bayside project proposal includes a spare parts listing. "In some cases," says Musser, "Our customers want us to just supply an initial spare parts inventory, but most of our customers rely on a longer term relationship of replacement parts for both commercial and fabricated components. In the latter case, Bayside relies on the original equipment suppliers to provide components to assure that any and all revisions are captured in order to meet the delivered assembly specification. Bayside's part distribution program is becoming the inventory alternative and plays a major role in our customer's life cycle support." Online monitoring The Online Monitoring program option allows customers to monitor equipment in real time. It also captures statistical data in an attempt to better understand the customer's operation and production metrics. Musser says, "This service helps us identify inefficient systems, processes or equipment that can improve productivity or diagnose maintenance requirements. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." To effectively offer the Online Monitoring program, Bayside partnered with Soft Solutions, maker of FactoryAnalyzer software. Jonathan Todd, Soft Solutions' Marketing Manager, says, "Our product provides production performance analysis, by monitoring and analyzing production metrics on equipment. The technology enables management to track and monitor key performance indicators such as equipment cycle times, fault times, and production counts via the web. As a result, FactoryAnalyzer provides real-time information throughout the organization to help our customers make effective decisions on how they manage their operations." "FactoryAnalyzer is an option for companies that are interested in understanding the performance of their line, as well as identifying areas that can be improved after the equipment is installed. Customers are most interested in eliminating the human and mechanical constraints from their production process. Utilizing this application will identify constraints caused by both the equipment or by operator performance. "Bayside and Soft Solutions are working as a team to provide monitoring solutions to new or existing lines where the need for automation or process improvements is recognized by our customers. Factory Analyzer is offered independent of Bayside, but is best served when a new process or machine design is conceptualized with this online monitoring tool. The compliment of Soft Solution's production statistics and metrics focus to Bayside's design capabilities will be a big plus for our customers" explains Musser. According to Musser, advisory services are performed with various simulation tools. "We employ simulation programs in the development of most proposals to meet the standard production unit requirements of our perspective customers. The use of the Soft Solution product bridges theory with reality and gives our customers the ability to take their production to the next level. So, for a relatively small, additional expenditure for the online application, our customers can obtain much higher efficiency out of their system. It's actually the best time for companies to start investing." A lot of companies are working smarter in today's challenging economic situation - cranking out product with fewer workers, reducing production schedules due to smaller orders, etc. Capacity constraints are not the issue today because people have plenty of capacity. Rather, companies have reduced shifts and overtime hours because the market has shrunk for their goods. While some people may view today's economic horizon as dim, it's actually the best time for companies to start investing in their existing assets and to get a better understanding of an operation's performance and its impact on the supply chain. Leaders in manufacturing are in constant review of technological opportunities that improve their process automation, lean lines, outsourcing, product through-put and monitoring systems that further their cause. Redesigning a process can offer productivity gains in excess of 100 percent and the use of online monitoring tools such as FactoryAnalyzer have reduced process variability offering another 18 to 20 percent improvement in throughput. For more information about Bayside Automation and its Life Cycle Support Services, visit www.baysideautomation.com or visit www.softsolutionsit.com for more information about Factory Analyzer. Author: Laura Carrabine |