OEE software aids wire firm's lean programme

Carrington Wire has embarked on an overall operational effectiveness (OEE) campaign as an important part of its lean continuous improvement process.

Carrington Wire has embarked on an overall operational effectiveness (OEE) campaign as an important part of its lean continuous improvement process.

Whilst the company has run an efficient manufacturing process, measuring production performance by using a combination of Microsoft Access databases and Excel spreadsheets, it realised it needed a more effective method of extracting information from the data provided on which it could act to improve itself.

Carrington's Plant Manager, Paul Barkas, said: "There was no shortage of data.

However, transforming that information into meaningful management reports to drive the business forward was both complex and time-consuming.

He added that Carrington's production has increased smoothly over the last decade, and with over 1,000 product variations, the company felt that it needed a system specifically to manage and process data and provide OEE measurements.

Paul Ainsley, Carrington's production manager, said: "Gemba Solutions' OEE Impact software seemed the simplest and most user-friendly system" commented.

That is important as its administration is carried out at team leader level.

However OEE Impact is also extremely powerful from a management reporting perspective.

The other major attraction was that the system is modular, allowing us to start with an initial investment of only GBP 995 per site.

OEE Impact has been implemented at both of Carrington Wire's UK plants, initially measuring OEE for five machines at each site.

"Over a three month period, we have identified productivity savings of approximately GBP 30,000 from just two machines," said Paul Ainsley.

The OEE measure was identified as key to Carrington's lean continuous improvement process.

OEE is a formula that looks at shop-floor productivity, performance and quality and provides a single benchmark measurement for the production process.

The OEE figure helps to highlight production bottlenecks, allowing users to identify production losers, drive down wastage levels and increase profits.

Gemba claimed that it is a core component of any lean manufacturing system and that it is easy to understand so that everyone can be empowered with the data, from the machine operator to the managing director.

OEE is rapidly becoming the manufacturing world's leading key performance indicator, believes the company, and can be applied to virtually any type or size of manufacturing facility.

Carrington Wire is the UK 's largest independent manufacturer, capable of producing over 200,000 tonnes of wire per year.

The company has two manufacturing plants in the UK and supplies over 50 countries world-wide.

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