Page 35 - MetalForming June 2014

that by the hourly machining cost and we captured real savings of more than $30,000/month against an ini- tial price for Merlin of $20,000. That’s a very satisfying payback on the technology.”
On one of its machines, says Ung, the shop was able to more than double machining time, for a 100-percent-plus efficiency gain. “It was so much of a gain that it was surreal at first,” says Ung, “with experienced operators very surprised to see the results.
“Previous to Merlin,” continues Ung, “shopfloor supervisors would manu- ally record information regarding start and end times, and quantity produced during the shift. However, the infor- mation didn’t provide the detail that enables better decision-making. With Merlin in place, we’ve seen a dramatic drop in time spent gathering data, along with a notable increase in the amount of data available to manage- ment and to operators.
“It’s important to be able to put the information in front of the operators so they can see the change in performance as changes are made in operating pro- cedures,” continues Ung. “Merlin pro- vides a truthful record of problems and, as the Pareto principle shows, we can quickly focus on the 20 percent of issues that result in 80 percent of our problems.”
Data Fuels a Lean PDCA Methodology
After collecting a month’s worth of information from Merlin, Ung and his team initiated a lean plan-do-check-act (PDCA) methodology with corrective actions.
“Memex supplied this in its ‘Roadmap to Success’ methodology,” says Ung, “a valuable tool for analyzing and interpreting the information Mer- lin makes available.”
After completing the corrective actions, Ung was able to show that Merlin brought the plant’s OEE to a sustained 85-percent-plus, up from 36 percent.
Day-to-day, Merlin provides Ung and his team with instantaneous as
well as timed e-mail alerts to minimize downtime. Dashboards, displayed on video screens throughout the shop floor, communicate realtime machine status.
More Benefits Coming
“We still do not use Merlin to collect quality information, as we are deter- mining how to effectively apply that information in our shop,” says Ung.
“We know we are just scratching the surface of what Merlin can do.”
Ung also notes his desire to tie Mer- lin into the firm’s ERP system to track shop orders and labor hours. And he wants to add MTConnect, “which will make it even easier for Merlin software to gather and read data in all formats from all of our machines,” Ung says. “We see a lot more savings in the future.” MF
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MetalForming/June 2014 33