Why method Centric Design for Manufacturing?

The Oaktree is a project developer that purchases technology from Factibox, a manufacturer and turnkey EPC contractor . Our vision is to leverage data from both manufacturing and operations to continuously improve processes, product design, materials, and operations.

By adopting mass production, we can utilize data from The Oaktree's operations and Factibox's manufacturing to develop superior production processes, materials, product design, and standards. This is a unique advantage compared to traditional utility plants.

Even with world-class designers, mass production will inevitably influence our products. Humans cannot create a perfect design for a complex system like a power plant immediately. Therefore, Factibox invests significantly more in manufacturing than in design.

As Elon Musk stated, "Design is overrated and manufacturing underrated." We agree that the return on investment (ROI) from manufacturing investments is substantially higher than from design investments. In last month's newsletter, we discussed how manufacturing outperformed construction, and through design for manufacturing (DFM), Factibox will deliver better plants at a lower cost.

The Oaktree's products are characterized by their complexity, medium to high production volumes, and stringent quality standards. To achieve our mission, continuous DFM development is essential. We have implemented a digital production system to enable continuous improvement, rapid staff onboarding, and effective support, leading to enhanced quality. The production system is integrated with the quality control system to maintain high-quality standards. Additionally, the system provides a planning tool and identifies bottlenecks, allowing us to optimize processes and allocate resources effectively.

We place the designers close to where the problems occur, to be able to solve them quickly, investing our time and resources in solving problems, and making our products better, and cheaper.

Our success hinges on a combination of leadership and systems. Without both, we cannot realize our vision. Factibox's leadership must empower our staff with the tools and authority to utilize their skills and expertise.

DFM is a crucial component of Factibox's continuous development and Industry 4.0 philosophy. It is applied early in the process to maximize cost and time savings. DFM involves all stakeholders to ensure that every need is considered and addressed.

The five principles of DFM

1. Process. The process should use lower-capitalized methods for cost-effective production. It should be optimized to fit each component. The process should also take tolerances and materials needed into account.
2. Design. The more complex the design, the higher the risk.,?
3. Materials. Choosing the right materials in the early stages can save you time and money. Your choice of materials has an impact on cost and quality. A few things play a role when choosing materials. A good chat with your contractor can go a long way.
4. Environment. Each part of your product must be designed for the environment it will be used.?
5. Testing. Finally, testing must be thorough. All products and components must comply with industry standards at each stage. These standards can be industry, internal, or company standards

These are the five principles that Factibox always uses, and naturally, there are more principles, and to evolve we intend to use more when we feel that they can improve our manufacturing.

Key principles of method-centric manufacturing that Factibox leans on:

Standardization: The establishment of clear, consistent methods across all aspects of production. This includes everything from work instructions to equipment setups.

Documentation: The detailed recording and documentation of all methods and procedures. This ensures that knowledge is preserved and can be easily accessed by future employees.

Training: The provision of comprehensive training to all employees on standardized methods. This helps to ensure that everyone is working consistently and efficiently.

Continuous Improvement: The ongoing pursuit of improvements to existing methods. This involves identifying areas for optimization, testing new approaches, and implementing changes that lead to increased efficiency and quality.

Data-Driven Decision Making: The use of data and analytics to inform decision-making. This helps to identify trends, identify bottlenecks, and measure the effectiveness of different methods.

Collaboration: The fostering of collaboration between different departments and teams to ensure that methods are aligned and support overall business objectives.

Diverse leadership is the key

It all comes down to a combination of our leadership and our systems, without one of them, we will never be able to reach our vision. Factibox's leadership has to give the support, tools, and authority to our staff to use all of their skills and expertise. Our recruitment focuses on diverse knowledge, our team has to be able to see problems from different angles to always come up with the best solutions. This puts demand on our leaders, who must be able to lead with clear objectives and build a culture saying that it’s ok to fail as long as we learn.

Our manufacturing system is our heart where we store best practices, onboarding - and all kinds of support, where data can be aggregated, and analyzed, and it’s one of our brains where AI analyzes enormous amounts of data and comes up with recommendations, so our workforce continuously can improve production. It’s also the system where we plan all of our production, to make sure that we avoid bottlenecks, and where we make sure that our resources are distributed in a good way.

The time for automation is now - The US lacks millions of qualified workers, so we can talk about automation

Our production system enables us to take processes that previously took 20 hours, to now take 2 since we continuously learn, become better, and remove elements that are not needed, or as Elon Musk says, “If you haven’t put anything back, then you have over-engineered.” The things that we haven’t manufactured can’t break.???

The US lacks millions of qualified workers. If you look at the map above, you can see that the US lacks a qualified workforce across the nation. This isn’t something that can be solved overnight, so we’ve chosen a manufacturing system that enables us to onboard staff, where they, after a few months, can act as if they have 10 years of experience. Where we also can build support dependent on the staff member, and the skill that she or he possesses, so that we can bring the right support to as many situations as possible. The fact that the demand for the workforce is great in the US is a great opportunity because going from 20 hours to 2 requires fewer resources, in most cases, resources we don’t have, so we are forced to invest in DFM to get our products out through the door.

Our Method-Centric Manufacturing philosophy emphasizes the importance of standardized, repeatable methods in production processes. It focuses on creating and following well-defined procedures to ensure consistency, efficiency, and quality, and still gives the authority to our staff to break the procedure once they see that something can be done better and faster.?

Automation

Before we begin the automation, we have to have the process set. Once that is done, then we begin the automation, step-by-step for as long as we gain time, and or quality by doing so. By running the automation process in stages, we don’t over-invest, and it gives us time to make the initial changes before they become too expensive.

Conclusion

Method Centric Design for Manufacturing will improve Factibox's quality and throughput if our leadership succeeds in creating a problem-solving environment where the resources are given to where it's needed, and where the staff who owns the problem has the authority to make needed decisions.

Our manufacturing system will give our staff an extra brain, and support our onboarding process. The fact that the onboarding process can be shortened enables our recruitment to focus more on personality and other experiences, and by doing this, increasing the base from where we can recruit, which is important in the fight for the best talent.

Our manufacturing system, where we continuously receive data from both manufacturing and operation, enables us to shorten the lead time from problem to solution - the more data one has, the better.

Next month:

See you next month talking about the benefit of automated QC.