Microsoft technology may not be readily associated with the manufacturing floor, but the folks in Redmond hope to change that.
I’m willing to bet that most Managing Automation readers do not associate Microsoft strongly with the manufacturing shop floor. Microsoft wants to change that perception, and to do so, it has developed technology focused on Lean manufacturing and operational excellence.
This morning I watched a bit of the keynote address at Microsoft’s Convergence conference in Atlanta. (I missed Steve Ballmer’s stint on stage, so I’m not as pumped up as I could be.) I was surprised to hear so much about manufacturing. The company that revolutionized business software has some interesting innovations meant to help manufacturers foster operational excellence in their factories.
On stage, Microsoft’s Lachlan Cash ran through a series of screens in the Dynamics AX ERP system that he said are devoted to enabling Lean manufacturing, including an integrated Kanban system that helps a manufacturer coordinate material purchases based on incoming orders, creating a Lean-oriented cycle.
The real attention-getter, however, was a demonstration of the company’s motion-sensing Kinect technology as it might be used in a manufacturing operation.
Cash shared the stage with Kirill Tatarinov, corporate VP for Microsoft Business Solutions, who pitched a Kinect-enabled screen as the latest evolution in plant-floor interactivity and efficiency. The lineage of operator interaction traces back to manual, paper-based processes, which were replaced by basic operator terminals, then most recently touch-screen HMIs that further reduced the physical demands on workers while allowing equal or greater levels of productivity. The use of Kinect furthers that path toward Lean manufacturing, officials said.
Cash demonstrated the manufacturing version of Kinect by standing before a generous-size flat screen perched at eye level about 10 feet in front of him. The screen featured a Dynamics AX UI showing a manufacturer’s weekly schedule of production activities. With some fairly subtle movements of his right hand, Cash was able to highlight a block of production events and move them to the following day. (One did get the impression that Cash might rearrange the entire schedule with one ill-time sneeze.)
Almost as soon as it was available to consumers, Kinect became a popular target of hackers and computer geeks, who used its motion-sensing abilities to create their own light sabers and upgrade their shadow puppets.
Now Microsoft is putting the technology to use in the service of Lean manufacturing. The use of Kinect technology appears to be another step toward operational excellence, in that it could relieve factory-floor operators of needless motions and trips to plant-floor terminals. For instance, your operators might wear gloves that they must pull off repeatedly to type or to punch a touch screen, impeding a Lean workflow.
Future uses might include manipulating robotic arms without endangering a human operator, clocking on and off a job, or signaling a Kanban event when line-side supplies run low.
Can you think of others?
