Product category:
Plant and shopfloor scheduling software
News Release from: Seiki Systems | Subject: IMES scheduling system
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 10 September 2007
Manual shopfloor progress chasing
computerised
Hydraulics manufacturer relates how it used to take 30 min to progress chase a job - until a scheduling system was introduced and integrated with existing MRP and networkd manufacturing system.
Production at hydraulic valve specialist Integrated Hydraulics is strictly 'due-date' led with output geared to meet order targets Before the installation of Seiki Systems' iMES scheduling system, the process of tracking down where a job was on the shopfloor used to take an average 30 minutes of precious management time followed by questions being asked to determine which operations had been completed and the estimated time for the batch to be finished
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 13 Feb 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Outlined Tony Cave, senior production engineer: "Following the installation in September 2006 of the Seiki Systems iMES scheduling system, which was fully integrated with our Sage Line 500 MRP system and the existing Seiki Systems Networked Manufacturing System (NMS), the internal phones have almost stopped ringing as people requiring production information now have live terminal access to the exact state of play.
Thanks to iMES, my team can now get on with their jobs," he said.
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Integrated Hydraulics is a GBP 27 million business producing over 500 types of hydraulic manifold bodies for its range of screw-in cartridge valves and systems.
These are exported to 20 countries from the 28,000ft2 Warwick, UK factory to customers in the off-road, agriculture, earth moving, mining and construction sectors.
Most machining is carried out in-house on the three C Dugard-supplied Hyundai-Kia V50D vertical machining centres installed this year, Hitachi-Seiki horizontal machining centres and semi-automatic, special-purpose, six-spindle turret machines.
Most production schedules involve some 350 different jobs with around 22 new jobs loaded daily.
Each morning at 7 am the server for Seiki Systems iMES scans the MRP system for new orders and repeats its cycle 12h later in order to assemble the new business into a passive job queue.
The Seiki Systems iMES then interfaces with the NMS software to update the job queue from activities and, behind the scenes, checks the activities carried out over the previous 12h period, then automatically re-plans the workload on the shopfloor.
All new jobs are allocated according to production engineering layouts to individual machines based on delivery date and the iMES software checks for material, tooling and program availability and immediately flags an order requirement to the supervisor if details are missing or if there is a warning of a possible problem.
Should the first choice machine be overloaded in terms of capacity, the system then informs supervision of viable options, depicts the second choice route and outlines its viability.
If program and tooling are available it will then import the relevant information.
Then, according to the scheduled start date to meet the delivery target, a list of tooling requirements is automatically transmitted to the tool stores ready for kit marshal and machine setting.
Through iMES, which has terminals in all key departments, and beside each machine tool, a colour coded screen planning board for each machine communicates current production information in a bar presentation format over the 24 production hours available each day, and creates the actual and future machine loading.
Holidays, planned maintenance and setting time are included and any changes that influence the flow of work, such as inspection stoppage or breakdown, are immediately identified to provide a warning and live update of any roll-on effect of the scheduled work in the form of delays.
Through a time view screen, decisions can be made from showing the roll-on effects of jobs being moved or batches split between machines in order to recover a situation with instant feedback on effects to existing works orders being processed.
The software uses a traffic light system to quickly identify the progress of each job: green depicts due day target OK, a light green warns that the job will be a close call with yellow used for 'just in time'.
Once the screen changes to orange, delivery is one week behind and red shows some serious remedial action will be required to bring work back on track.
Back on the shopfloor operator co-operation is paramount, to which Cave adds: "Everyone can see the benefit of iMES and the operator simply ticks the appropriate route card on the screen when the job is started, if there is a hitch or delay, or the run is completed.
Because tools, program and material are prepared prior to setting on the machine, waiting time is limited and through the iMES queuing system, it lets the operator know what is on the agenda and the urgency".
The previous planning board system was based on a single resource of CNC machines and could not track other processes such as deburring, washing etc to show a completed process log of the part.
As a result, there was limited information available once work was in progress.
And as Cave described, everyone used the telephone, or worse still, e-mails 'flew' around the company requesting information.
Data was input manually and any immediate problems were satisfied with the work being shuffled to try to meet targets.
However, this had little regard to longer term repercussions and resulted in the moving of problems further down the line.
Today, anyone who needs to know can see, within one minute (the routine scanned update cycle from NMS to iMES) the exact state of production and even the sales team has the facility to check online to know exactly where any customer order fits into the 'due-date' schedule.
In his production engineering role Cave now has a fast track update, not only for program requirements and tooling problems but information on machine and process reliability.
And rather than rely on 'gut feel' that additional capacity or a replacement machine is required and the changes in work loading, he has factual information to initiate special attention, justify a purchase, or seek additional capacity through subcontract.
Indeed, it was through iMES that the first Hyundai-Kia V50D was justified and once installed, such was its performance and high level of utilisation recorded by NMS, that two further machines were ordered from C Dugard.
On a weekly basis iMES sends an electronic delivery report to management giving an update of 'due date' situations and operations waiting to be completed.
The weekly report is created to cover overall production and each machine showing production, alarms, maintenance, programming, waiting setting and housekeeping with at-a-glance pie chart breakdown.
In addition, the full integration of NMS to iMES provides the vital link to traceability due to its factual reporting system.
Integrated Hydraulics knows the CNC program used on any job when it is returned from the machine via DNC where it is then compared to the original download to check any changes made.
The old program is then archived if approved by production engineering or an investigation carried out should there be a problem envisaged from any changes made on the shopfloor.
Cave was very impressed by the availability of the electronic diary that is a compendium of notes of operator actions, thoughts or comments and any problems or changes that are now archived with each job for reference on future batch runs.
Also, records are made of production and quality data, original planned times and costs that are laid out against actual production achievement data.
Information is also recorded on machine history, materials and tooling, to which Cave added: "Used properly this is very important because no one will remember what happened even just a few days ago".
Cave's development of the system is still progressing and here the modularity of iMES is able to support the growth and development of companies.
For Integrated Hydraulics the next stage is to build into the system subcontract operations to track, record and monitor the processes in the same way as internal production is recorded.
As a result, important information will be provided for management decisions either to put uneconomic tasks outside, or draw back in-house operations that need tighter control.
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