Improving Quality – Reduce Scrap & Rework
Poor quality production, scrap, rework and spoilage are all types of waste that reduce manufacturing efficiency. PlantRun systems can monitor quality and count scrap product during production to provide real-time quality KPI’s, reports and alarm if scrap target levels are exceeded.
PlantRun can accept a simple count of reject, defective or scrap product or connect to thousands of different industrial measuring and monitoring devices for automated quality checking. Alternatively scrap data can be input manually or via spreadsheet at any time.
Furthermore and unlike most OEE systems, PlantRun can also handle any process values (temperature, pressure, humidity etc.) that may be critical to the quality of your products as well as provide any level of control that may be required.
Monitoring of scrap and rework can be as simple or sophisticated as you need to inform you of;
- Scrap variance against target or planned scrap
- Nominal cost of scrap for any job or production run based on costing values for raw materials, energy, labour rates etc. input to the system.
- Scrap, rework and spoilage against any monitored parameter. This highlights differences in scrap and rework levels by product, shift, operator, raw material, machine etc
Jidoka and PlantRun
In Lean Manufacturing and Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing environments PlantRun can be used to enable the Jidoka technique as used in the Toyota Production System (TPS).
With Jidoka when poor quality product is detected production is stopped. Special attention is given to not only fix or correct the immediate problem but to also investigate the root cause and introduce measures to ensure the problem does not reoccur – in line with poka-yoke mistake proofing.
Jidoka prevents scrap and rework, eliminates overproduction and reduces the amount of work that is added to a defective product.
By using PlantRun wherever possible to monitor product quality it can be used to automatically stop production when defective product is identified. This relieves the need for staff to continuously judge whether machines are operating normally. This can improve man machine ratio with staff focussing their attention on any problems that occur.
Although the Jidoka technique slows production when defects are found it reduces waste and improves efficiency by the early detection and rectification of problems. It is cited as a major factor in the difference between the effectiveness of Toyota and other companies that have adopted Lean Manufacturing.
