Mark Albert, Editor in Chief of Modern Machine Shop, writes a great article on MTConnect and Memex Automation. Mark is a great writer and a real expert in MTConnect and of course manufacturing.
The title of the article is: "Making Sure MTConnect Is A Good Fit"
Below is a snippet:
"The story starts with the shop’s overriding goal to
boost its overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). OEE is a measure of how
well a manufacturing operation is doing. The most common way to
calculate OEE is to multiply machine availability, performance and
quality, where each of these three factors represents a percentage of an
ideal total or optimal level. For now, the company can calculate only
availability. But this is a great start, because not long ago, its
management was most concerned about its perception that the shop’s
utilization rate was below what it could and should be.
Today, with an MTConnect-enabled machine monitoring
system from Memex Automation (Burlington, Ontario) in place since
September 2014, the shop is hitting 65 percent or higher utilization,
which is up from 53 percent when the system was first installed. A plan
is in place to improve utilization to 70 percent. The ultimate target is
reaching the 85 percent utilization that is widely regarded as the
level characteristic of world-class manufacturing organizations."
Mark continues later in the article sharing very valuable tips:
"These tips emerged from the shop’s experiences during this phase of implementation:
• Have stand-up meetings with each group of operators to
answer questions about the system and explain the meaning and value of
OEE.
• Share a vision of future system features that enable
operators to report and track their contributions to productivity (setup
activities, maintenance chores, feature checking, tool replenishment
and so on).
• Set a reasonable baseline for machine availability.
Initially, this was pegged at 57 percent, based on the initial
monitoring period. Supervisors are pleased when a machine is operating
above this level and concerned when it is below. As answers and
suggestions flow from the good questions now being asked during this
initial period, encourage positive actions to apply the improvements.
• Use data for positive, appreciative questioning. “I’ve
noticed one of your machines has been down all morning. How can I
help?” for example.
• Send help fast. When a machine is down, the best
response is to have the production supervisor check it out in person. In
most cases, these visits become impromptu training sessions about best
shopfloor practices. This approach is especially valuable because it
enables less-experienced operators to help themselves if the problem
recurs.
• Look for patterns. This shop has MERLIN programmed to
email a daily report to the production manager that summarizes machine
time for all monitored machines. One of the patterns that became
apparent from reviewing these reports is the high number of optional
program stops that were occurring. Optional stops give operators a
chance to clear chips, check dimensions, inspect inserts between cycles
and so on. However, the number seemed excessive. The new thinking is
that reducing the number of optional stops and using only the
unavoidable ones more efficiently will significantly increase machine
availability."
This article is a must read for anyone in manufacturing, regardless if there is any interest in MTConnect.
