Activplant's users are as diverse as its capabilities. Take a moment to review how other manufacturing facilities have successfully applied Activplant, and learn about the impact it can have in a wide range of industries.

• Enterprise Productivity
• Plant Efficiency
• Production Monitoring
• Labour Tracking and Reporting

Enterprise Productivity

A large manufacturer of tire products was looking for an off-the-shelf solution to improve production throughput and increase profitability. They saw Activplant as a comprehensive, enterprise-wide production and downtime monitoring tool, and immediately deployed it in several of their facilities.

Activplant quickly identified the bottlenecks in each department, and - most significantly - the plant bottleneck. After identifying the plant bottleneck, they were able to use real-time and historical data to analyze it and determine how throughput could be improved. They were able to make some simple, mechanical changes to the machine, make a minor modification to the operator schedule, and see immediate and dramatic improvements. This resulted in a net production increase of $400,000 over the first 12 months - for just this line. In addition, as the constraint on this critical line shifted from one machine to the other, its effect could be predicted and eliminated before it impacted production negatively.

Activplant is monitored consistently by maintenance to focus proactively on the top 10 downtime sources in each department. In the past 12 months, they have reduced the 'mean time to repair' (MTTR) in each department by 3 minutes per incident and extended the mean time between failure (MTBF) significantly. The estimated annual savings range between $300,000 and $600,000.

An interesting and unforeseen benefit of the Activplant implementation was that the operators on the floor (who are paid a bonus for exceeding specific production targets) very quickly began reaping the rewards of the increased MTBF and the reduced MTTR. As a result, a much better level of communication and cooperation exists between the operators and the maintenance, engineering and management staff.

Quick Facts:

• Looking for an off-the-shelf application to improve production efficiency and increase profitability.
• Identified the plant bottleneck using real-time & historical data analysis tools to determine how to improve.
• Net production increase of400,000 over the first 12 months!
• Reduced the MTTR by 3 minutes in each department
• Estimated annual savings range between $700,000 and $1,100,000

Features:

• Web Deployed
• Real-time machine status
• Production & downtime monitoring
• Batch & product tracking
• Integrated data mining & reporting
• Fast implementation
• Easy administration & maintenance
• Simple integration with third party software
• Flexible configuration & data viewing

Benefits:

• Increased production throughput
• Improved work environment for plant floor operators
• R.O.I. in less than 6 months

Activplant enables you to:

• Make fact-based decisions using verifiable, real-time & historical data
• Identify, analyze and eliminate manufacturing constraints
• Improve production throughput & production capacities

Plant Efficiency

A large, 'tier 1' automotive supplier was spending approximately 600 hours a month collecting production and operations data manually and entering that data into an Excel spreadsheet. Additionally, there were two IT developers creating reports from this manually entered data. They would typically take 1-2 weeks to create the custom reports that were required by various users. Aside from possible errors in this manual process, it would typically take 2-4 weeks for the various reports and statistics to be available to the plant manager and operations management, significantly reducing their impact. At approximately $45.00 per hour, this equates to an ongoing savings of $30,600.00 per month in labor costs.

Within the first 2 months using Activplant, plant operators were able to identify a significant constraint on their main production line. As they collected and monitored cycle times on the robots, they observed over that 2-month period that their cycle time had increased gradually by almost half a second. Using Activplant's data mining and analysis tools to associate specific maintenance events with subtle changes in cycle times, they identified the source of their loss. The maintenance group working on the robots would insert short 'wait states' to work around mechanical issues. These accumulated and ultimately had a significant impact on the overall cycle time. The savings on this line alone (approx $300,000) resulted in a complete ROI in 2 months.

They use the downtime monitoring functionality of Activplant to proactively place maintenance teams where the most significant downtime sources happen to be. This has resulted in dramatic improvements in their MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) and improved their OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) from 76% to 82%.

Quick Facts:

• Reduced the resources required to accurately collect data, generate flexible reports for each department and increase productivity.
• Live & historical data pinpointed constraints on the main production line.
• Correct and precise scheduling was implemented.
• Identified subtle increase in cycle time over a 2 month period.
• The downtime monitoring functionality of Activplant resulted in their OEE increasing from 76% to 82%!

Features:

• Web Deployed
• Real-time machine status
• Production & downtime monitoring
• Batch & product tracking
• Integrated data mining & reporting
• Fast implementation
• Easy administration & maintenance
• Simple integration with third party software
• Flexible configuration & data viewing

Benefits:

• Eliminate major sources of downtime
• R.O.I. in less than 6 months
• Increased production throughput
• Activplant enables you to
• Make fact-based decisions using verifiable, real-time & historical data
• Identify, analyze and eliminate manufacturing constraints
• Improve production throughput & production capacities

Production Monitoring

An automotive powertrain component supplier required both a production monitoring system and a data collection system to improve productivity and quality for warranty/recall purposes.

They configured Activplant to monitor production, efficiency and downtime incidents by part (batch) number, enabling production, maintenance, operations and material management staff to view, plan and react optimally for each department.

Material Managers and schedulers monitor production in real time from their desktops and can now forecast exactly how long each part number takes to produce. When a customer calls to inquire about or expedite a shipment, Activplant enables them to respond instantaneously with the exact status of their order. This has greatly improved customer satisfaction and shipment forecast accuracy. Over the past 6 months, they have refined the scheduling of orders because they have accurate data on every part number they've produced. They've also been able to determine which part numbers run most efficiently on each line, and now schedule production accordingly. They estimate that refining their production schedules will save them $700,000 in the first 12 months.

The QA department uses Activplant to log quality data at specific stations. Torque, weight, inside/outside diameter, temperature and pressure values are logged with respect to part serial numbers so that in the short term, negative quality trends can be detected and corrected before production is impacted. In the long term, historical quality data is analyzed in relationship to warranty defects, driving specific product and process improvements. In the event of a recall, 'customer Z' can identify exactly which parts are affected - reducing the impact to just those customers that have the defective components.

Quick Facts:

• Required a production monitoring and data collection system to improve quality and productivity.
• Activplant enabled the staff to review, plan and react optimally for each department.
• An estimated $700,000 saved in refining the production scheduling in the first 12 months.
• Reduced impact of defective components by identifying exactly what parts are affected.

Features:

• Web Deployed
• Real-time machine status
• Production & downtime monitoring
• Batch & product tracking
• Integrated data mining & reporting
• Fast implementation
• Easy administration & maintenance
• Microsoft .NET for Manufacturing architecture
• Simple integration with third party software
• Flexible configuration & data viewing

Benefits:

• R.O.I. in less than 6 months
• Increased production throughput
• Rapid response to customer warranty issues

Activplant enables you to:

• Make fact-based decisions using verifiable, real-time & historical data
• Identify, analyze and eliminate manufacturing constraints
• Improve production throughput & production capacities

Labour Tracking and Reporting

Who:

One of the world's largest automotive Tier 1 Suppliers

Problem:

1.       understand specifically what their labor/unit/production costs were in real-time and for any specific amount of history (by using a combination of automated and operator-entered data acquisition)

2.       to know at any point what real inventory levels are on the plant floor - again in real-time

3.       reduce their scrap by identifying scrap quantity and reason codes, by product ID

4.       account for and reduce machine setup and changeover time

Action:

Activplant was implemented as both, an automated and manual data collection system. They interfaced directly to the PLC's controlling their machinery and placed a VPTerminal (operator terminal) at each appropriate line or machine.

Activplant was configured to collect the number of good parts, cycle times, machine state information, machine fault codes, operator codes, scrap qty, scrap reason code, scrap Part ID, etc. Production, scrap, downtime and inventory numbers are collected and presented in terms of the appropriate shift schedule as well as by part numbers.

All of this data is uploaded in real-time to their ERP system for the purpose of labor tracking and reporting, inventory control, scheduling and production monitoring using the Activplant Enterprise Gateway Module..

Results:

This Tier 1 manufacturer saw immediate benefits from the Activplant implementation. In addition to identifying their non-producing machine capacity and scrap, their ERP system now has valid, objective and real-time data from the plant floor that is being used for accurate production costing, labor and production planning and inventory control.

This tight integration between plant and business operations has provided them with a much more accurate and timely perspective on their production capabilities and production costs. They've identified and reduced the most significant source of scrap and are able to respond much more rapidly and accurately to their customers and suppliers. They have achieved true Manufacturing Intelligence, with and end-to-end view of their production process, from raw material to finished goods - and every step in between. The plant floor is no longer a black hole.