Touch screen use increases stairlift productivity

Stairlifts manufacturer has installed touch systems technology to help prevent labelling errors and increase productivity by enabling staff to access the enterprise computing network.

British stairlifts manufacturer, Stannah Stairlifts, has installed 3M Touch Systems technology, supplied by Distec, on its factory floor in Andover.

The touch screens help prevent labelling errors and increase productivity by enabling staff to access the enterprise computing network without the need for a keyboard or mouse.

Every year Stannah Stairlifts found it was experiencing a small number of errors when mislabelled sub-assemblies caused the wrong stock to be picked and dispatched to the customer's house for installation.

The attention to detail and desire for quality and efficiency at Stannah prompted the company to choose touch screen technology as the optimal solution.

According to Noel Sheppard, director at Distec, the natural choice was a capacitive touch screen featuring a robust, all-glass construction.

"The 3M ChassisTouch systems have a Mhos-6.5 rating, which means it has equivalent scratch resistance to plate glass and is suitable for the production floor environment.

The all-glass construction ensures a bright and clear display, which is easy to use by staff who are focused on machining and assembly tasks." Application software developed in-house now presents build instructions to the staff of each manufacturing cell and allows them to quickly generate labels by selecting from clear icons displayed on the touch screen.

Upon successful completion of inspection and test, fresh labels are generated describing the system components, direct from the production floor.

Andy Hounslow, business systems project manager at Stannah Stairlifts explains, "This was the first time we worked with Distec and 3M Touch Systems.

We have been very happy with quality of advice and the performance of the 3M ChassisTouch system.

Installation was also very simple, taking less than half a day to install all the hardware and set up the touch screens.

This was an easy calibration task, nothing more complicated than that." 3M's standard 15-inch chassis display, with capacitive touch screen technology, matched Stannah's functional and environmental requirements.

It easily supports a custom graphical user interface, has a rugged aluminium enclosure, secure mounting points, VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) compliant mounting and bulkhead-mounted connections for outstanding robustness.

An optional 3M bezel was also added to create an independent, free-standing screen, fixed to a suitable Ergotron pivot to allow each operator to adjust the orientation of the screen.

About 3M Touch Systems - 3M's goal is to provide practical and ingenious solutions that help customers succeed.

3M is a $18 billion dollar multinational which creates, manufactures and markets over 50,000 products across 200 countries world-wide.

The company has a diverse product range, offering practical solutions to the business, consumer, telecoms, transportation, office, healthcare and industrial markets.

3M was founded in Minnesota, US, in 1902 and established a UK subsidiary in 1951.

Today, in the UK and Ireland, the company employs approximately 3,500 employees in 14 locations, with an annual turnover of over GBP 600 million.

In 2003 3M invested over $1 billion in Research and Development and related expenses.

Approximately 10% of the workforce is employed in R and D.

3M was ranked 17th in the world's 'Most Respected Companies', 2003 (Financial Times Jan 2004).

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