Improving competitiveness and productivity by enhancing efficiency, standardising processes and reducing incidents

Case Study Rafael Márquez Moro y Cía. S.A. and ITEMSA

Itesma y Rafael Márquez Moro y Cia, ajuts acció

Approductivity 4.0 pilot implementation for productivity improvement by optimising and controlling processes in real time

Case Study

A project is designed and presented to obtain ACCIÓ's Industry 4.0 Vouchers, which is consolidated in a pilot implementation project with the integration of Approductivity 4.0 to improve productivity through the optimisation and control of processes in real time. The project achieves a 15% improvement in technical productivity, an additional 5% improvement over time in technical efficiency and the availability of reliable information.

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Initial Situation

Rafael Márquez Moro y Cía. S.A. has over 50 years of history transforming brass bars into finished pieces providing the highest quality and guarantee for its clients. In 1999 the new factory was inaugurated in its current location, where it has the necessary space, resources and technology for manufacturing.

The current situation has forced the company to open up new markets, which has led to a sales increase which, however, has not led to a significant financial improvement in the company's balance sheet due to its low profit margins and the high production costs.

To overcome this issue, the company has set itself the objective of making the production process more efficient:

  • To carry out daily production monitoring, machine by machine, taking manual measurements of production (cycles, stoppages, etc.) to determine the real situation.
  • The data obtained made it possible to determine the overall efficiency of the different plant sections.

For this purpose, the ACCIÓ Industry 4.0 Vouchers (2020) are requested to enable a pilot implementation of the Approductivity 4.0 application (Process Engineering and KPIs & Incentives Manager modules) and the corresponding work methodology, in order to:

  • To provide an agile system for defining standards - making the processes more flexible, so as to be able to manufacture ever shorter series, with no negative impact on the company's costs, and simultaneously,
  • To be able to identify, in real time, any possible deviation from the standards, enabling to react immediately before the deviation turns into waste.
  • And, eventually, to improve the efficiency and productivity of the plant.
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General Intervention Plan

  • Objectives and work plan definition of the project.
  • Implementation and parameterisation of the Industry 4.0 software solution Approductivity 4.0.
  • Standards definition (processes, methods and times) and the respective monitoring KPIs in the area/section where the pilot implementation will take place.
  • Monitoring systematics and analysis of the KPIs.
  • Completion of the pilot implementation and final report, specifying the achieved results and the potential improvement quantification
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Actions

Project objectives and work plan definition:

  • Initial on-site audit, to ensure a thorough overview of the production processes:
    • Our Technical Director and Acció Accredited Advisor in Industry 4.0, Albert Calvo, along with one of our Project Managers visit the production plant to coordinate and organise the data capture tasks in this initial phase of the project.
  • Project objectives and work plan definition:
    • After analysing the resulting information from the preliminary studies carried out (as part of the work foreseen in the Installation and Parameterisation Point of the Industry 4.0 software solution Approductivity 4.0), it is decided to undertake the implementation according to the following:
      • Installation and parameterisation of Approductivity 4.0:

For the improvement of ‘technical’productivity:

        • On-site data collection of the various production processes in the following sections: presses, semi-automatic and automatic machines.
        • Analysis, by timekeeping and SMED, of these processes.
        • Allocation of the respective rest coefficients (fatigue and personal needs) for the working conditions identified.
        • Determination of the corresponding execution and changeover times and creation of the related pre-determined Standard Tables in order to have accurate, agile and efficient planning and control tools.

For the improvement of Efficiency ("real productivity"):

        • On-site data collection and general observation of the development of the work carried out by the Operators and the performance of the main Machines.
        • Analysis, by sampling, of the aforementioned observation (presses, semi-automatic machines and automatic machines).
        • This sampling enables us to quantify the use made of the main machines and the real causes for their stoppage.
        • However, the total hours of presence of the direct personnel observed are quantified: performance of value-added tasks, non-value-added tasks, handling of incidents or breakdowns, stoppages, absences, etc.
        • In this way, it is possible to qualify the time that is currently underutilised due to the presence of wastage (inefficiencies).
        • Comparison of the results obtained with the information managed by the company.
        • Proposal of organisational improvements, of means (of low cost and quick amortisation), of workload balancing, of layout, of method, etc.
        • Estimation of the productivity improvement potential achievable by the incorporation of the proposed improvements.

Additional and support tasks:

        • Provide access to Rafael Márquez Moro y Cía. S.A. Managers to Approductivity 4.0, with the subsequent definition of roles and permissions so that they can carry out the company's own studies and calculate the resulting KPIs.
        • Provide training in the use of the application ( Process Engineering and KPIs & Incentives Manager modules).
        • Supporting the client's managers to get the most out of the Industry 4.0 tool.
  • Standards definition (processes, methods and times) and the associated monitoring KPIs in the selected section for the pilot implementation (semi-automatic machines).
    • Method and time studies are carried out for production tasks and format changeover or machine set-up.
    • The corresponding standards are determined after the implementation of the identified improvement proposals.
    • The KPIs for measuring the progress of production and the level of compliance with the planned schedule are defined and modified (they will also be the basis for the future Incentive System).
  • Monitoring and analysis of the KPIs systematic:
    • The KPIs & Incentives Manager module of Approductivity 4.0 is incorporated .
  • Pilot implementation and final report, specifying the results obtained during the pilot implementation period and the quantification of the improvement potential:
    • Assistance to the Management in the implementation of the improvements and the new optimised methods in the pilot area (semi-automatic machines).
    • Project metrics calculation (results achieved vs. planned objectives).
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Goals

The company plans to have an interconnected factory with interlinked management systems, with accurate data and information, in real time, by using sensors installed at the most appropriate points of the process - in order to collect and communicate the data more efficiently -, which will facilitate deviation handling as soon as they occur.
And, therefore, it is expected to obtain an efficiency improvement, both in terms of machine utilisation, performance and quality, an improvement in customer service, elimination of "paper" and manual calculation of incentives, visual control of the factory status and others.

The objectives to be achieved with this intervention (qualitative and quantitative) were:

  • Productivity improvement quantification achieved by improving processes and working methods and increasing the utilisation of facilities and machines through pilot implementation.
  • Quantification of the effect of waste reduction on efficiency improvement (reduction of the GAP between reality and standards).
  • Validation of the suitability of the Approductivity 4.0 software as an Industry 4.0 tool for improving the company's competitiveness.
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Results

  • Procedure for allocating method and time standards:

Using Aproductivity 4.0, the operating methods for production and set-up or model changeover tasks have been established to standardise the working methods practised by the operators in the Semi-Automatic Machine Section. The aforementioned methods have been analysed and improvements have been incorporated allowing a 10-15% improvement in "technical " productivity - at engineering level (improvement of working methods and elimination of non-value-added tasks) - compared to the initial situation.

Once these improvements have been incorporated, Approductivity 4.0 has been used to determine the standard times of a representative sample of the production times of various references and of the model changes of some machines.

  • Planning procedure:

Planning is handled using Approductivity 4.0, directly linking the standard times established for each reference and machine set-up (tables of predetermined standards created with the Process Engineering module), indicating the manufacturing quantity of each machine and the changeovers to be undertaken.
Therefore, it is not necessary to write the values of the standard times manually in Excel, as is currently done, but rather it is done with the times recorded in the system, thus guaranteeing that we always work with the latest version of the aforementioned standards.

  • Production control and KPI calculation procedure:

The control of the stoppage reasons and non-productive tasks was not in line with the day-to-day reality, which made it impossible to know the real impact of the resulting wastage, which limited the ability to correctly prioritise possible action plans for the continuous efficiency improvement.

Around 45% of the semi-automatic machine downtime was due to model changeovers and set-ups, so it was decided to work intensively on the optimisation of these machine set-up operations.

The Process Engineering and KPIs & Incentives Manager modules of Approductivity 4.0 integration has enabled performance calculations to be made automatically, and the integration of sensors is also being implemented in order to eliminate manual work.

The KPIs & Incentives Manager module receives the standard times and the planning that has been drawn up from the Process Engineering module, as well as information related to what has actually occurred. In this way, predefined KPIs are automatically calculated and can be evaluated over the desired period of time.

Regarding the calculation of performance indicators, Approductivity 4.0 has also made it possible to include the efficiency indicator, so that more information is available to be able to improve ‘real productivity’ (reduction of the GAP between standard times and reality). The improvement of this Efficiency (‘real’ productivity) is achieved over time and gradually and it is estimated that savings of around 5% in addition to the technical improvement can be achieved in the first years of implementation.

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Improvement of the technical productivity by

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Additional in efficiency improvement