Page 12 - MetalForming March 2010

Appliance OEM
Lovin’ Lubrication
as a Way to Boost OEE
Using roller-application
systems to apply a new synthetic lube eliminates die-maintenance headaches in an Electrolux pressroom, contributing to the firm’s efforts to increase overall equipment efficiency (OEE).
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
The management team at the Elec- trolux kitchen-range manufactur- ing plant in Springfield, TN, relies on its pressroom to keep assembly lines stocked just-in-time with stampings that meet strict quality requirements, without fail. This is no simple task, as the firm has asked its pressroom to down-gauge while also stamp spiffier- looking parts with complex forms that often require practical magic from its dies and presses.
When we last wrote about the Elec- trolux pressroom’s investment in new
press controls and quick-die-change procedures, its continuous-improve- ment plan was called Disruption Free Production (MetalForming, December 2000). The plan focused on training and timely maintenance to optimize press uptime. Today, the plan has evolved into a more encompassing OEE hierarchy of metrics that has plant man- agers and engineers looking at efficien- cy and productivity from every con- ceivable angle.
Most recently, its pressroom engi- neers and tooling team have joined
Programmable fluid controllers (right) deliver synthetic lube to each roller-application system (left) to accurately dispense lube to the top and bottom of the stock. “All of the presses used to have their own lube-mixing equipment, with lube pumped to spray nozzles on the dies,” says plant maintenance engineer Mark Frauendienst. “Now we’re using a central mixing station with lines running to each press’s roller-application system, to ensure consistent mixes.”
10 METALFORMING / MARCH 2010 www.metalformingmagazine.com