Page 16 - MetalForming November 2016

Do You Place a Dollar Value on
Downtime?
If not, then you’re likely operating at a disadvantage in an increasingly competitive market. Here’s one metalformer’s strategy for diminishing downtime, leveraging Industry 4.0 technology, with impressive results to show for it.
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
Any number of ailments and wounds can impact metalform- ing-shop performance—unusu- ally slow die changeovers, untimely and overly time-consuming press or die repairs, and unexplained and inconvenient expediting of materials are just a few. Shop management can either take a quick and easy Band-Aid approach to healing these wounds and watch them reappear, or focus on root- cause analysis and cure them forever.
At Chicagoland metalformer ODM Tool & Mfg., Inc., a focus on root-cause analysis and a more permanent approach to ensuring optimum shop perform- ance has led to a significant boost in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and a corresponding drop in downtime. Several factors contribute, such as bet- ter use of predictive and preventive maintenance, and closer policing of activities—die changeovers on presses and cycle times through robotic-weld- ing cells, for example. All of these activ- ities have one common thread: real- time gathering of production data, and visibility of that data by management to enable quick and decisive action. It’s a terrific example of Industry 4.0 connectivity impacting the metalform- ing industry.
ODM has installed ShopFloorConnect data-collection devices on 10 of its presses (top) and on its four robotic-welding cells, providing detailed downtime-runtime analysis to help the metalformer optimize OEE. Data analysis has led to continuous-improvement projects focused on activities such as quick die change and development of ergonomic weld fixtures.
14 MetalForming/November 2016
www.metalformingmagazine.com
Cost Justification,
Due to Downtime Evaluation
If you’re not operating as a ‘smart shop’ today, and lack plans to become one, you’re likely a ‘dumb shop,’ or on your way to becoming one. And I have no doubt that the smartest metalform- ing shops will likely be those that sur- vive the next industry downturn, when- ever that occurs.
For ODM, the quest to become smart landed on firm ground early in 2015 with an investment in Wintriss’ ShopFloorConnect technology. That followed several years of concerted and ongoing efforts to upgrade press con- trols on its mechanical presses to Win- triss SmartPac 2 units. When asked to explain how management justified the cost of such technology upgrades, Jay