Page 27 - MetalForming July 2017

often want our employees to sign off on every process and procedure they complete, and we must certify every critical dimension. At times, 50 percent of a job can comprise inspection and documentation.”
Front-Office Efficiency Moves to the Shop
Unity works out of a 23,000-sq.-ft. facility (all but 3400 sq. ft. is manufac- turing space), with 40 employees, to perform wire-EDM, machining, finish- ing, welding and assembly processes. The company has done a great job automating its manufacturing opera- tions—it operates three robotic mills, for example. And, while it’s been using JobBoss since 1989, Van Essen notes a measurable increase in the company’s ability to leverage the ERP software just in the last few years.
“Early on,” he says, “we were able to use the software develop a uniform quoting process. And we quickly auto- mated processes for invoicing and accounting. This was a huge leap for- ward for us from paper documentation and spreadsheets, and helped us create a very lean front office. Our annual sales have grown six-fold since the early 1990s, while our office staff has increased only by a factor of three.”
Lately, the focus has shifted to using ERP modules to drive shop-floor effi- ciency. For example, Van Essen points to the shop-floor data-collection mod- ule called Workstation Driver, which sits on every computer in the shop and allows workers to quickly input the time worked on each job. They also can add job notes, attachments and drawings, and use the software to check job status by work center, part number, material location, etc.
“We use the data-collection capa- bilities to ensure that employees are working on the right jobs at the right times. They also update job status so that our back-office personnel don’t have to, and we can use the record- keeping capabilities to gauge employee performance and identify training opportunities,” Van Essen says.
A related program integrated with
Automation is a way of life at Unity Precision, illustrat- ed here by one the firm’s three robot-tended CNC mills. A vision system guides the robot’s pick-and- place chores, moving parts to and from the mill and a pair of conveyors.
ered in their own, unique style, automating the creation of inspection reports has proven to be a challenge. But, Van Essen and his team are working to overcome it, using quality-management soft- ware modules from JobBoss partner uniPoint. The soft- ware manages numerous quality functions including non-conformances, correc- tive/preventive actions, doc- uments, maintenance and calibration, request/change management, inspections, auditing, and education and training.
When all is said and done, combining the efficiency gains from automating qual- ity, timekeeping, inventory tracking and other functions has greatly improved produc- tivity and, perhaps most importantly, improved cus- tomer relationships.
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JobBoss and Workstation Driver at Unity is called KnowledgeSync Event Man- ager. It tracks database activity and issues alerts to key stakeholders to iden- tify areas that need attention, sooner rather than later. Unity also uses Knowl- edgeSync as a communication tool throughout the organization.
“For example,” Van Essen says, “we can automatically send alerts out to our customers when an order ships, and provide a tracking number. This ensures that our employees and those at the customer are all on the same page, optimizing awareness about each job up and down the supply chain. It really optimizes communi- cation between us, our customers and our suppliers.
“The bottom line,” he adds, “is that we’re working smarter, not just harder.”
Last but not Least—Managing Quality and Inspection
As every customer, it seems, asks for inspection reports compiled and deliv-
“We have done a good job creating more detailed trav- elers for our jobs,” Van Essen says, “tak- ing more time to detail out every order before they reach the shop floor. This has been a great revelation for us, allowing us to eliminate mistakes on the floor that can impact and delay scheduling. We’re also paying closer attention to entering accurate time- keeping data so that we can accurately predict ship dates, which makes our job quotes more reliable. In the end, lead times are down and on-time deliv- ery is up, and labor content is reduced,
which improves productivity.
“As we’ve increased revenues, our on-time delivery performance also has improved considerably,” he adds. “Over the last 10 years, there were times when we were achieving less than 90 percent on-time delivery. About 5 years ago we consistently crossed that 90-percent threshold, and now we’re at 95 percent or better. We’ve even hit 100-percent for several weeks in a row during the last year or two—a big achievement for any job shop.” MF