...a case history

Tuesday, 15 November 2005

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." This is a familiar mantra in the manufacturing sector, where companies of all sizes must constantly seek out ways of producing goods faster, cheaper and better than ever before if they are to maintain their competitive edge.

On the premise that "knowledge is power", effective management of accurate shopfloor manufacturing information can often prove to be a vital ingredient in achieving these goals.

The progressive implementation of DLoG data-based systems at Hawke International demonstrates how a tried-and-tested, building block approach can enable incremental benefits to be achieved in a short space of time, paving the way for further investment and subsequent expansion of the system.

The customer
Based in Manchester, Hawke International is a leading producer of electrical cable connectors, termination and barrier products for use in hazardous locations and hostile environments.

The 140-strong organisation is a member of the Hubbell Group and has operating subsidiaries in the USA and Singapore. Many of the company's products are characterised by components manufactured from round or hexagonal bars in brass, stainless steel or aluminium. Typically, these are processed in the company's turning shop on a selection of Mori Seiki or Nakamura CNC machines.

"With more than 20 different ranges of cable glands alone, each with capacities from 5-75 mm diameter, we have an enormous variety of machining programs to control," says Production Engineer, Keith Wright.

The problem
"Prior to the installation of our DLoG DNC system in the early nineties, that meant thousands of programs on punched tape; with all the associated problems that entailed. However, the DNC network streamlined our operations at a stroke, by offering a way for machining programs to be accessed directly from the machine tools by touch-screen IPCs," explains Wright.

The system also increased throughput and traceability; resulting in payback within a six month period. But, just as importantly, the DNC implementation provided the foundation for recent extension of the company's shop floor data management capabilities to include a Prisma machine monitoring system.

Limited capability
Previously, Hawke operated a limited capability monitoring system. "Effectively, it recorded little more than run times and the number of machine cycles within a batch," says Wright. "It was only able to record three or four different reasons for stoppages, so didn't provide much scope for detailed analysis or diagnostics.

"What's more, the data needed to be transferred manually to an Excel spreadsheet, a further potential source of errors."

Like many other companies operating in competitive international markets, Hawke also recognised that downtime reduction would be an important factor in improving its overall productivity. "But to make good decisions, we needed good information," adds Wright. "And that meant accurate utilisation figures, along with the true reasons for any production delays."

The solution
"A number of different machine monitoring solutions were evaluated. But we were quickly impressed by the system proposed by DLoG, which would use software compatible with the existing touch screen IPCs. With little more than software costs to find, extension of the existing DLoG system was seen as an obvious, low-risk way forward."

Operators were already familiar with the machine-mounted IPC units, so the 'building block' approach to implementation recommended by DLoG was regarded as a natural progression.

DLoG worked closely with Wright and his colleagues to ensure that the new system would be capable of accurately recording the multiplicity of reasons that actually caused production delays. The result has been the creation of eight top level folders or groups, which are each sub-divided into sub-menus and specific entry categories.

The DLoG system is equally comprehensive in terms of its report generation, with a wide range of user-definable parameters enabling reports to be produced on demand, with analysis by individual machine, production cell, shift, or any other specified criteria. In addition, the results are instantly available in industry-standard Excel spreadsheet format, enabling simpler distribution throughout the organisation in electronic format.

The DLoG system also incorporates easily assimilated graphical displays, which allow problem areas to be identified by production staff quickly and accurately.

Effectiveness
"The system's effectiveness can be demonstrated by the way it helped us to home in on the issue of swarf clogging up the production machines," notes Wright. "The display provided a clear indication of the true extent of the problem, enabling us to justify the purchase of new swarf conveyors which, entirely as anticipated, have achieved a fast payback."

The new DLoG monitoring system has also played a central role in Hawke's drive to reduce set-up times, by highlighting a need for investment in additional tooling. Today, the company is well on the way to achieving its target of bringing down average machine set up times by 50%. In parallel, machine efficiency has increased by 15% since the start of this project.

"It has helped to reduce overall production lead times and, in turn, prompted us to initiate a stock reduction exercise, with additional cost benefits," notes Wright. "Each contribution helps to improve our competitiveness and move us closer to our longer term goal of only making parts to order."

Extending the effectiveness
So, are there any further enhancements to the DLoG system likely to be implemented in the near future? Well, Keith Wright's vote goes to the introduction of an automated job tracking system: "I believe the addition of this to our existing DLoG system would give a more complete and up to the moment picture of progress through the shop; permitting the quantities produced and time to complete batches to be instantly updated," he says. "It's about control in all its forms and accurate information is the key."

The latest example of the Prisma system's ability to help Hawke increase its competitiveness serves to underline his point: "Within the last few months, vital information identified through the monitoring system enabled us to justify a major investment in a new 7-axis machining centre," notes Wright. "Several critical jobs have now been brought back in-house, which has effectively increased the control we can apply to our own processes - simply through reducing our previous dependence on external sub-contract machining services," he concludes.