Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Machinist boosts sales by 30% with new scheduling

Manufacturing and production scheduling system is proving critical in controlling day-to-day events at a subcontract machinist to maximise production and deliveries.

Manufacturing and production scheduling system is proving critical in controlling day-to-day events at a subcontract machinist to maximise production and deliveries. During the first half of 2005, specialist subcontract machinist Kenard Engineering increased its sales turnover by some 30 per cent helped in part by the installation of new high specification machine tools. But it is a new manufacturing and production scheduling system by Seiki Systems of Brighton that is proving critical in controlling day-to-day events on the shopfloor to maximise production and deliveries.

As there are now some 320 different components, most of which are high value and require up to 38 operations on the 'Work to Do' list at the company's Dartford site, accurate and detailed control and monitoring is paramount.

Not only has the new software built confidence right through the company in its ability to control production, but it has also improved machine utilisation and, by reducing work-in-progress times, has set the business well on its target of giving customers a 40-day turnaround from enquiry to delivery.

Said director Keith Ellis: 'We hear so much about the importance of the 'knowledge-driven' economy well we have a 'knowledge-driven' production operation where management and customers know exactly what is happening and should be occurring.' He followed on to describe how Kenard has invested over GBP 1 million at Dartford in two of the latest mill/turn centres, one capable of very complex production cycles involving simultaneous five-axis milling with its 120-tool capacity and the other, a mill/turn centre, is able to produce parts up to 1000mm diameter by 2000mm long.

'As a result, we are far more competitive, having the ability to combine five or six separate operations into one or two very specialised 'one-hit' cycles, and we've almost doubled our capacity for large work,' he maintained.

But Ellis points out that even with the new capacity, it has been the installation of the totally integrated manufacturing system iMES from Seiki Systems that has enabled the company to control work flow and respond to customers, reduce work in progress and make the best use of the production resource of 15 CNC machines.

The Seiki Systems software, installed in the first quarter of 2005, had an immediate impact in creating extra capacity by increasing machine utilisation, but as Keith Ellis insists: 'All information regarding work in progress is held within the company and not by individuals.

We work to factual information and no longer rely on someone's instinct.' In fact, even prior to the installation Keith Ellis maintains Kenard was quite switched-on for production control but it took a fully employed person, a highly paid graduate, all day to monitor and check the workflow.

'In comparison it now takes half-an-hour to perform this housekeeping.

The beauty of live information is at any time we can see on the screen not only if any problems are looming but most important, the effects on delivery or other planned operations of any delay caused, say, in setting, machine loading, inspection or tooling problems.' Kenard Engineering employs 55 people at Dartford offering subcontract machining services on mostly high value components for the aerospace, oil and gas, telecoms, defence, medical, motorsport, sub sea and mechanical seals sectors.

It has another site in Tewkesbury where 18 CNC machines are installed including a GBP 2.5 million, five-machine flexible manufacturing system involving four-axis horizontal machining centres and Fastems automation.

There is also a sheetmetal, sub and final assembly facility serving mainly defence, oil and gas and aerospace sectors.

Prior to installation of iMES at Dartford, Kenard used its in-house developed and award winning, Kenard Integrated Database Scheduler (KIDS) which imported data to a Preactor scheduling system that in turn exported lists of jobs to do.

The system, originally installed in the early 1990s had progressively evolved and, as systems do, became more complicated and cumbersome where as iMES is much faster, easier to use and genuinely 'real-time'.

Ellis explained, there was also the issue of reduced lead times which was becoming the driving force of the operation, especially with such a significant level of added value work available in the UK.

'To win these contracts you must be able to respond and deliver parts to the level of quality demanded and strictly to a tight schedule.

We have been able to generally reduce our lead times from 12 to 16 weeks of five years ago to under four weeks now and we are well on course to hit the 40-day enquiry to delivery target.' A typical higher added value component produced by Kenard is qualified by one particular aerospace contract where the machining alone of each part is valued at more than GBP 6,500 and involves 38 different processes on its route card.

'This is not the type of work you want gathering dust around the machine shop and we have a fair number of parts where material values alone are worth over GBP 1,000,' said Ellis.

Thus, with the new mill/turn machine installations replacing existing machines, Kenard knew it had created additional capacity to help reduce lead times but, 'we had to improve machine utilisation across the board if we were going to move the business forward,' he said.

'The iMES installation achieves this.

Giving absolute 'in-your-face', feed-back of what is happening in real time with live dynamic graphical predictions of workloads on each machine.

This is backed up with projected completion dates and performance reporting in a totally paperless environment.

The iMES system provides us with planning, a real-time scheduling display of all stages of relevant manufacturing data including subcontract processes right from material order to final despatch.

However, we also have the bonus of immediate automated management reporting.

We no longer have to wait to see how we performed, it is on the screen in front of us,' he added.

Due to its capability to integrate with other software systems, iMES takes the original 'work to' listing from the Kenard KIDS program and links into the Seiki Systems Networked Manufacturing Software (NMS).

NMS monitors in -real-time - the operational status of each of the 15 CNC machines to provide a continuous flow of information.

On the shopfloor, the operator and supervision view the same job queue and are informed that material, programs and tooling are available.

This at a stroke eliminates wasted time searching for tools, material or parts that have been pre-machined.

If the job is not ready to run, the system automatically feeds back information and when the next job is taken in preference, the system immediately updates the re-scheduled works order and highlights a problem if it has an effect on the final promised delivery date.

Meanwhile, the progress of the job currently in production is featured on the electronic job card that is 'stamped' on screen as it moves through its planned production routing, thus giving immediate updates on the system.

The installation has proven to be so successful that Kenard is currently expanding its use by installing it at the Tewkesbury site.

There will also be a live link back to the headquarters in Dartford to provide a totally transparent, capacity, work-in-progress, production analysis and management reporting system.

In addition to the 18 CNC machines on the site, bench working, painting, sheet metal production and assembly are also being integrated to provide full site coverage.

According to Ellis, the Dartford operation set up has already impressed customers.

He said: 'What has pleased us is their feedback of growing confidence in our operation and comments that what we are doing seems to be so simple, they are amazed that other production based suppliers are not doing the same.'