We had the pleasure to meet again with Jan Snoeij, President and Senior Consultant at MOM Institute. Jan is visiting us yearly to give MESA’s Certificate of Awareness MES trainings, which Roima Intelligence Inc. is organizing here, being the only MESA Recognized business in Finland.

What does the “President and Senior Consultant at MOM Institute” do as daily work?

The MOM Institute has two main activities: education and business consultancy. My daily role is to run the business as President, organize with my team education sessions both from MESA International and own programs, workshops and educational sessions. Next to that I am directly involved as an instructor/moderator of these sessions.
Another role is Senior Consultant, helping manufacturing companies in many countries to improve their operational performance. In this role, I work together with customer teams, creating awareness, discovering best practices and potential for improvement, selecting “sufficiently good” MOM applications and creating step-by-step roadmaps. As MOMi we are independent and most often at the customer’s side. Last but not least, I am happy to have a great team at MOMi. It’s always teamwork as well with our customers as with my colleagues.

Do you travel much related to training / consulting?

I travel quite a lot – maybe 180 days a year – mostly in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England but also to Finland and the USA.

What is the driver that keeps you interested in MOM year after year?

I’m interested in customers’ challenges and helping them to enhance their performance. My background is in Applied Physics, I’m interested in how things are done. IT can be an very interesting and powerful tool. Above all –people interest me, they make the work fun. I’m also a teacher, and it is great to be in a position to share my knowledge and experience with others. If my customers are happy, I am too. Often they tell me they are. This is really a driving force.

What is interesting in MES/MOM today?

First of all, improvement potential is huge. Technology is creating great prospects, bigger than ever! Something is going to change for good in the production, it is not clear yet what will happen. Yet, the idea of living in a completely new world is truly fascinating.
The manufacturing business is not boring at all, it’s very interesting and has huge potential. Nowadays technology is enabling the development, not restricting, as it used to be in the past.
If you’re working with manufacturing now, be smart.

What have companies achieved by MES/MOM implementation?

There are many good examples. If you do things the right way and have the right people available, you can expect a ROI in 1,5 year. As an example, in a coffee factory we added a simple quality check done by the operators. In this way they got a way better view on their processes and were able to reduce waste significantly. As a single improvement it made a big impact to the whole factory’s performance.
In one case the company’s target was 5 – 6 % improvement to a certain KPI (Key Performance Indicator). After MES/MOM project they held a production meeting at the factory to review the results. Factory manager went to the headquarters with amazing news: 27 % improvement. They could not believe it. But the KPI kept improving, next year the figures were even better.
Well, it is not always this good. You need to be realistic, even conservative. But when you do the right things with the right people, you can even exceed your expectations. Your approach must focus first of all a better way of working: standardized processes. Next to that your organization and governance, the skill sets of the people and the support by appropriate IT are essential for success. Change management must address all four areas, I just mentioned. Production, the business, should be the owner of the entire program, not IT. That is key to success.

What kind of companies do you recommend should participate MESA CoA training, and why?

It is useful for all manufacturing companies. Continuous improvement should be on everyone’s development agenda. This also applies to solution providers, system integrators and consultants.
MESA CoA offers a structured overview – not details, but a starting-point to get things done. Standard approach and best practices make improvement easier for companies, and helps to avoid risks at certain points.

What it takes for a new vendor to develop a MES/MOM platform? And how can an established vendor keep up with the development?

Developing a new product it not easy. The understanding what is needed from the manufacturing process point-of-view is the vital thing. It’s a huge investment. The current state-of-the-art in MES/MOM platforms is SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) with a work-centric integration approach. So, really putting the manufacturing way of working centrally. Existing vendors may suffer from old technologies they need to replace. For most of them, it is work in progress, probably being somewhere half way. There are also relative new solutions, which are started from the beginning with the new technologies and architectures.
Thank you for the interview, Jan, and bon voyage to your next MOM-adventure!