In its efforts to improve labor productivity, the customer had developed new production equipment that combined multiple operations into one integrated machine. Instead of several operators on multiple machines, there was one operator for the integrated machine. Unfortunately, equipment uptime was only 50%, which was significantly below target to achieve cost effective production. Overall throughput was suffering and the expected labor productivity gains were unrealized.

IET provided two engineers to be on-site for one week of intensive data collection and feedback. During this time, the engineers captured detailed equipment performance data. Every instance of lost production time was documented and assigned a root cause. Frequency and duration data was summarized in Pareto analyses to illustrate the potential improvement from each root cause.

Material and changeover issues proved to be the principal sources of loss. IET’s engineers recommended low / no-cost ideas for simplifying replenishment procedures; standardizing unit quantities; and reducing changeover time along with other suggestions to increase uptime. The customer, armed with actionable data, was now able to determine the most cost effective pathway to meet their goals.