Lenox refines IT support/plant-floor interaction
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 1/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
At Lenox China, Lawrenceville, N.J., IT on the factory floor comes in the form of a "plant analyst." Preferably, plant analysts are Microsoft-certified network engineers or administrators, and they serve as IT tech support for Lenox's hybrid manufacturing operations. They spend most of every day on the factory floor, not in the IT department.
Rich Santoriello, senior applications manager at Lenox, is careful to point out that they are "PC guys with great troubleshooting ability, not server guys. The server guys are in the corporate office."
The distinction is part of a hard-won lesson that began when Lenox first put in its manufacturing execution system (MES), and it became clear that IT and operations needed to redefine the way they interacted.
"Before that, everyone was on their own," says Santoriello. "It was a madhouse that was impossible to manage." Now, after some trial and error, the plant-floor people and IT have learned to talk to one another. "We learned the hard way," adds Santoriello. "We didn't figure it all out in one day. We said, 'Let's take this problem and learn from it.' "
The solution was based on communication—educating the plant floor about infrastructure, and corporate IT about the realities of life on the production line—thus making Santoriello and his team the middlemen.
When the plant floor needs a new piece of computer equipment or software, Santoriello and his people see to it that the right people from the Infrastructure Group are involved and that everyone is on the same page.
"The plant floor is the end customer," he says. "I make sure it can do what it needs to do. I, in turn, am the customer of the Infrastructure Group. They're responsible for networks, servers, and security. We work together to make things happen. We figure out how to do it in a way that is least disruptive for everyone."
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