Tracing Quality Improvement Shows Manufacturing's Value (Automation World)

View article online

by Gary Mintchell, Editor in Chief

June 2011

Manufacturing executives are under tremendous pressure to justify their relevance to their corporate overseers.

Some corporate managers see manufacturing as a black box with little value for the company. In a Wall Street Journal piece on June 12, retired auto executive Bob Lutz maintains, "A car company, on the other hand, is one enormous, hugely complicated organism that has many moving parts, all closely interrelated and interdependent.

"Many of the company's activities are day-to-day: running the plants to produce components and assemble cars, procuring supplier parts, moving the finished vehicles to the dealers, billing same and booking the revenue. The operations portion of the automobile business has been thoroughly optimized over many decades, doesn't vary much from one automobile company to another, and can be managed with a focus on repetitive process. It is the 'hard' part of the car business and requires little in the way of creativity, vision or imagination. Almost all car companies do this very well, and there is little or no competitive advantage to be gained by 'trying even harder' in procurement, manufacturing or wholesale."

Most, if not all, manufacturing executives would cringe at these remarks. And many people in the United States would argue that the auto companies have done a great job of managing their manufacturing. Companies not only can gain competitive advantage from manufacturing, they can lose competitive advantage in a heartbeat through shoddy manufacturing--just ask Toyota.

A software application often called "track and trace" has been used to maintain a database of product lot numbers and destinations in order to reduce the scope of a potential product recall. Much like other technologies developed for industry for one purpose only to find its true meaning in another, track and trace applications have found more utility in closing the product quality loop within the manufacturing system. The goal now is reduced scrap, fewer bad products and improved customer satisfaction with the product.

Michael Lyle, chief executive officer of Software as a Service (SaaS) supplier InfinityQS in Chantilly, Va., goes so far as to call the track and trace application strategic. "Typically, ProFicient on Demand is implemented as part of a strategic initiative to control quality within a single facility, global enterprise, and/or supply chain. The product contains many technologies to simplify data collection. Real-time visibility of supplier quality data allows manufacturers to collaborate with suppliers and ensure product quality before the product is shipped. By preventing supplier quality issues, business save time and money, and can prevent supplier related recalls. Data can be entered from mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers. The ability to collect data in such a fashion allows for complete traceability of components across the supply chain."

So-called "infant mortality" in electronics manufacturing is a term for the situation when a product fails upon power up. Dr. McLean notes that another value of traceability in manufacturing is for customers who need to be 100 percent certain on products--such as products that will be used on an offshore oil rig. "For those customers, we go to a higher level," he says. "We take the product through considerably more testing than normal--extreme hot/cold, full range, and not just burn-in, but a combination of burn-in and also electrical performance verification at temperatures. We can certify to the customer that they won't have to go back to repair."

While these applications provide an obvious marketing benefit to Phoenix Contact, McLean says, "Feedback from the process is good. Anything that would be a fall-out, say fails a stress test, goes through a process of learning and understanding why it failed. That is fed back into the system for process refinement. Over time, much better information gets into the manufacturing process than just a customer return. Sometimes customer information is sketchy, or we don't even get the product back sometimes. With these we get very good information. We can do real root-cause analysis. We trend the data. If we detect a trend, it will generate much activity."

Distillery gains batch uniformity

Beam Global Wine & Spirits, based in Clermont, Ky., is the largest spirits company based in the United States and the fourth largest in the world. Its roots trace back to 1775. But the distiller has not reached its current success by relying solely on age-old production methods. Jim Beam stays at the forefront of automation and information software solutions through its long-standing partnership with Invensys Operations Management's Wonderware--a 19-year collaboration.

The goal of the project was to help Beam gain greater control of the production process leading to increased uniformity of the product. The foundation of the system is the Wonderware Industrial Application Server. This application is a uniform environment for visualization, device communications, application integration and reporting, plus an infrastructure for simplifying the development, launch, maintenance and administration of future deployments. This ability to replicate systems would be a major strength for Jim Beam moving forward.

"Prior to Wonderware, a lot of the processes were manual. We would have to manually turn on valves, switches and pumps. (Wonderware) allows the operators to control the process from one location. And that gives us a lot of consistency," says Crosley. Beam also utilizes Wonderware's batch management and reporting applications.

Crosley puts these capabilities into perspective, "In regards to metrics, what we're seeing is a consistency in throughput. Through the trending information, we're able to tell when problematic areas arise. And by having that information readily available and having it automated, we're able to take preventative action and maintain a consistent operation."

One of the most important attributes of the solution has been its ability to make a positive impact on Jim Beam's bottom line. Harry Crigler, distillery operations manager, says, "At the end of each week, we struggle to get our mashes out on time. With InBatch, we're able to do at least two more fermenters per week. So it's a big measurement factor for us--if we can produce more product in the same amount of time, it's a very big cost savings."

Smart printing keeps line running

Business performance can be continually improved in many ways. Karl Perry, senior product manager for printer software at Intermec in Everett, Wash., says, "Printing operations provide an excellent--and often overlooked--opportunity. One growing trend among companies with bar code printing operations is to leverage the capabilities of "smart" printers, which are printers that integrate the power of a personal computer. Smart printers enable businesses to change the way their printing operations are structured, to streamline and improve processes in ways that reduce operating costs while improving reliability."

Intermec designs and manufactures rugged mobile computers, smart printers, bar code and RFID systems. One application of smart printing saving a manufacturer money and grief is the case of Webasto Roof Systems. This manufacturer of sunroofs for cars faced a challenge of tracking products through its manufacturing process so that it will ship products in the correct order to its car assembly customers.

In the automotive industry, it is extremely important that parts are labeled correctly prior to reaching a manufacturer's assembly line. For Webasto, if its sunroofs are mislabeled, a black sunroof could end up in a white car. To ensure this does not occur, Webasto labels its sunroofs so that the right sequence of roofs matches an assembly line order. Proper sequencing assures that the right sunroof is installed in the assigned vehicle. The incorrect sequencing of one sunroof can cause assembly lines to shut down for hours at a time, which translates into lost time, money and penalties. "Proper labeling is a big issue for automotive suppliers," says Mike Thibideau, chief information officer of Webasto. "Misidentified parts get very costly when it forces lines to shut down. It can also prevent suppliers from quoting on new business, so you can understand why it is a high priority for us."