Derby Associates has responded to this emerging business need by launching a NEW family of web-based data collection and decision support solutions. Derby's new web-centric technology makes it easy for users to gain access to information regardless of where the data is being generated. Consider an electronics manufacturer with production sites in China and Mexico, and repair centers across the USA and Europe being able to collect, analyze and report on product data from anywhere in the global manufacturing supply chain! With Shop Floor Insight (or SFI ) from Derby, this is now possible.

SFI enables users across the enterprise to "make better decisions faster" by making product data readily accessible to them via the Internet. Whether you are a quality engineer trying to ensure conformance and product quality, an engineer monitoring test performance and coverage or a designer validating product specifications you can get the product data needed for real-time decision support with SFI .

SFI Overview

Shop Floor INSIGHT (SFI) is a Web-based Decision Support solution from Derby Associates that is designed to improve engineering decisions and business intelligence for highly dispersed supply chains and business processes.

SFI was completely designed from the ground up and is based on leading-edge technology (Sun Microsystems’ J2EE platform and Apache Tomcat), which makes the solution web-based and platform independent. SFI ’s web-centric architecture enables electronics companies with captive or outsourced manufacturing to provide the engineering decision support needed to get quality products to the marketplace on time.

SFI uses advanced statistics and data correlation techniques to analyze event-driven measurement data from anywhere in the manufacturing supply chain to produce the information needed by engineers to "make better decision faster".

SFI Features

  Web Browser Interface - Easy access to information via the Internet without the need to install any client software

  Statistical Data Analysis & Reporting - Ability to perform real-time SPC and off-line SQC statistical analysis

  Automated Data Collection from Commercial ATE - Real-time access to accurate test, measurement & defect data

  Database Designed Specifically for Electronics - Improved data correlation and root cause analysis

  Platform Independence - Flexibility to run SFI on the leading platforms (e.g. Linux or Microsoft Windows®)

  Multi-Tiered Architecture - Flexibility to centralize or distribute the SFI solution

Make Informed Decisions during the product life cylce ...

SFI does not require any software on the client side to use the application, just access to the Internet via a standard web Browser (e.g. Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer) is all that is needed. Whether you are in the office or on the road you can gain access to SFI data over the Internet -  "Just start your browser, log on to SFI and start generating information".

SFI provides access to a wide range of web-based SQC and SPC reports that users can use to analyze test, measurement and failure data from anywhere in the global supply chain.  Users can analyze product data via the Internet in real-time regardless of where it was generated.

SFI 's unique database schema design allows users to analyze and correlate data by date/time, product, site, line, process step, test program, operator, etc, which significantly improves root cause analysis and decision support.

An example of the SFI Histogram report analyzing measurement data from a test is shown below. This has been one of the more popular Derby reports over the past 15 years and it is now available in a new web-based format.

SFI enables users to analyze variable and attribute data from anywhere in the supply chain with SPC run charts (including p-chart, np-chart, c-chart, u-chart, XmR chart, XbarRS chart, pareto chart and N of M chart)

The SFI run charts also support dynamic rules checking that generate an alarm when a non-compliance condition is detected. Alarm rules include Western Electric rule 1 to 4, Cpk, Upper/Lower Specification Limits and Upper/Lower Control Limits. When an alarm is detected it is displayed on the run chart.

An example of the SFI Xbar RS run chart with rules checking enabled is shown below.

SFI has a multi-tiered and distributed architecture, which makes the application flexible and highly scalable. The various tiers of SFI can be loaded on a single machine or distributed across multiple servers, as shown below. This flexibility enables SFI to be scaled to meet the data volume and IT requirements of most companies.