Industrial Intelligence

CNC Shop Manufacturer

Case Study

Reducing Excessive Machine Downtime

PRoblem

Our Client was aware and knew their production issues needed to be addressed. They came to this conclusion by looking at the number of products going out the door, the number of operators and machines, and the estimated cycle times. The team knew that they should be getting a lot more production than they were, but that was all the knew. They didn’t have any strong data to back up that argument.

CNC machines similar to the ones in this case study that needed real-time data to reduce downtime.

Solution

The approach in this project was to identify the priorities in the plant and a roadmap for tackling the most valuable and least complex challenges first. This led to implementing a pilot project on two machines using an OTF (off-the-shelf) system, driving adoption in the plant incrementally, and solving some real, live issues around machine downtime.

CNC machine similar to the one in this case study that needed real-time data to reduce downtime.

Results

The project was successful, reducing downtime on the pilot project machines by about 45% right off the bat. The solution was scaled up to all the other machines in the plant. In the end, the solution prevented the company from spending about $500K in capital costs to buy a new machine which is no longer necessary at current order levels. Additionally, the company is increasing production and revenue by about $340K/machine/year.

Other Recent Works

Check out some of our other recent projects!