Q&A with Liam Hastie of SIMUL8

VSM: How will virtualization and manufacturing intersect in 2012?

LH: First, we should note that there are no ‘new ideas’ in manufacturing. All current manufacturing trends such as lean, variation reduction or integrated supply chains can all be found in practices adopted by Henry Ford over 100 years ago. What does change is how technology drives these processes, how these processes are marketed and grouped, and the extent that these approaches are adopted by industry. Lean approaches will continue to dominate thinking and requests for virtual environments and simulation. In particular, the ability to use simulation to experiment with lean implementation options will lead manufactures to discover their vital constraints and eradicate inefficiencies much more quickly than using traditional techniques.

VSM: How has the manufacturing environment changed over the past few years?

LH: Visual management and feedback has become a much more important part of manufacturing. Rather than being solely directed towards managers, it is now becoming common for performance data and quality rates to be displayed in real-time to the operational staff themselves. Increases in the numbers of temporary staff and foreign nationals employed in manufacturing have influenced how this information is being displayed; it is far easier for staff to follow traffic light systems or animations than it is to understand on screen statements loaded with industry specific jargon.

VSM: What is a potential roadblock in some companies using virtualization for manufacturing?

LH: The adoption of new techniques can be extremely patchy across the industry; some firms will be running with very sophisticated Lean Six Sigma strategies that employ a vast amount of instant data collection and daily process optimization management, whilst other firms can be completely unaware of or unable to implement even basic concepts that have been popular for decades. There is an on-going debate about the suitability of Six Sigma in helping SMEs; while 6S has driven major benefits in large companies, many smaller firms struggle to use it successfully. There are many reasons for this and researchers are currently seeking to develop a generic tool for firms to assess Six Sigma readiness.

VSM: Where do you expect virtualization to grow over the next few years?

LH: Wherever you see technological advances in manufacturing firms; for instance, smaller wireless devices, will increase the popularity of ‘information tools’ on the shop-floor, such as RFID tags, handheld barcode scanners, tablet PC’s, robotic pallets, and other applications. The need to manage these sorts of systems should encourage manufacturing firms to be thinking in a way that is more aligned to simulation and the benefits of simulation.