Andon Systems and OEE improvement
January 14, 2009 by david.evanson
What are Andon systems or Andon lamps?
Andon lamps are an extremely simple system of visual management for helping teams identify when there is a problem with a process or machine. Originally they were developed as part of the Jidoka quality-control method within the Toyota Production System and have now been incorporated into standard lean manufacturing practice
Originally andon lamps were used to notify teams of a quality problem, and more frequently we see them installed on continuous flow lines to help inform operators of why machines have stopped. For example if i have an operator running two packaging machines and one of the machines stop, a simple Andon light stack can instantly tell the operator if he has a problem (and has to intervene) or if the machine has just run out of product.
Here are some sample Andon Systems courtesy of google images:
Andon lamp block
A traditional andon light stack
Andon panel with fault alarms
Andon Text display
Benefits of traditional Andon systems in your visual factory:
- Reduce reaction times for machine problems - operators see the state of machines quickly
- Reduced downtime for fault fixing - lamps indicate most common “faults” e.g. low reel, jams etc
- Improve management efficiency - Managers can quickly see which machines are stopped on a busy floor
Drawbacks of traditional Andon systems in your lean implementation:
- Signals need to be interpreted - complex systems need a code or key card to help operators remember what the alarms mean.
- Can be hard to see - if they’ve been in place for a long time lights often get damaged and dirty and can be hard to see. They can also often become ‘background noise’.
Taking Andon systems to the next level…XL800 for the ultimate visual factory
The XL800 OEE system brings Andon systems into the 21st century by taking all the strengths of existing systems, adding even more functionality, whilst keeping the core simplicity.
When you install an XL800 OEE System on your machine or line the highly visual alphanumeric display system can be used to highlight KPI’s and running conditions just like any display system.
Basic functionality:
Almost instantly the XL800 OEE system can support your lean manufacturing implementation by very quickly enabling you to show:
- MACHINE DOWN + Duration of downtime
- BREAK TIME REMAINING + Duration of break
- CHANGEOVER + Duration of changeover
More advanced functionality:
If you can get a signal from your machine to indicate why that machine has stopped then your XL800 could automatically display additional faults or alarms such as:
- Stop - Build Back (too much product on outfeed)
- Stop - Lack (no raw materials on infeed)
- Stop - No raw material
- Stop - Guards open
- Quality check due now (based on the number parts produced)
- Stop - SPECIFIC FAULT MESSAGE
- Target achieved - Good job team
- …..and the list goes on! If you can get us a signal, the XL800 OEE System can give you a display!
So what are the benefits of an XL800 as your Andon system?
- All of the benefits as traditional Andon systems
- Inform and motivate your team: by displaying real time data for how long each alarm has been triggered, and by showing targets for the production run
- Increase productivity: Simplify your shop floor - the display is 100% user configurable so you can quickly select the alarms that make the most difference to you
- Save money: Your operators will be able to respond to the right causes of machine downtime and get your machines fixed faster.
- Increase OEE: With machines being fixed faster you will produce more product than ever before
- Essential for TPM: The built in reporting and analytics software in the XL800 system is ideal for driving your TPM implementation as part of your lean journey.
Massively reduce your Overtime bill
January 7, 2009 by david.evanson
If you run a plant with lots of hand packing how interested are you in reducing your overtime costs?
I’m guessing that the answer is a big resounding “VERY”!
I believe that just 5 steps with our XL800 system will provide you with the answer you need - and the payback is likely to be within our free trial (depending on the size of your overtime bill!). Call us now on +44 121 447 8520 to find out more.
Just this week i was in an FMCG plant with a hand packing hall. Every individual unit is manually lifted from the line and placed into a cardboard box, sealed, and then hand palletised. The manager i was with explained how amazing it was that when the team were behind on performance and needed overtime to finish the run, just how frequently the amount of time needed was exactly 1 or 2 hours! Perhaps this may sound familar to you?
So here’s a suggestion that could massively reduce your overtime bill: Install an XL800 in your manual handling hall and use it to display the performance of your packing team.
Here’s how to massively cut your overtime bill:
1. Get a signal:
- Firstly find some way to get a pulse for every box packed.
- This site had a really simple automated tape machine built into the conveyor - fully mechanical with 3 spring-loaded moving parts. The answer: install a £20 laser eye to pick up the movement of one moving part.
2. Work out a reasonable run rate (cycle time) for the packing team:
- What takt time do your team need to work at to meet output? What speed can they realistically achieve? Calculate the first one from the speed of your slowest automated machine. Calculate the second one through some line based timings - ensure you consider your health and safety requirements.
3. Install your XL800 system to display:
- Target packing speed
- Actual packing speed
- Mins lost due to slow running/stops
- Units left till end of run
Goal Count Down Scoreboard
- Or work out what KPI’s are most motivating for your team - remember that the XL800 is recording over 100 KPI’s all the time, including; number of slow cycles, number of minor stops, mins changeover time.
4. Review their performance….with the team….several times in the day. Ensure that they understand the metrics. Ensure that your front line management team use the metrics to support and encourage the team rather than to beat them up.
5. Watch your overtime bill freefall as the team become engaged with real-time data that they can control.
Warning: THIS WILL IMPROVE THE PRODUCTIVITY OF YOUR TEAM AND YOU MAY NEED TO FIND THEM MORE JOBS TO DO, OR GET MORE PRODUCT TO MAKE.
I remember seeing this process used most effectively in an electronics company where the teams were told their daily target, and given responsibility to deliver that target however they wanted. If that meant working faster so that they could all go for breaks at the same time, then that was their choice.
If you would like to massively reduce your manual handling overtime bill, give OptimumFX a call right now on +44 121 447 8520, or follow the link to send us an email.
Using XL800 for Takt Time Analysis
November 30, 2008 by david.evanson
We recently had the pleasure of meeting a team who wanted a way of preventing their Continuous Improvement Manager from spending hours with a stop watch and a unit counter on a gantry counting units on the line to identify a minor stop issue. Well….5 mins of configuration later this is the example we have created.
So - how can you use an XL800 as a portable Continuous Improvement Manager?
What we did was set the board with a desired takt time (which in this example is 1s).
We then said that:
- any cycle that’s 1s + 5% is a “slow cycle”
- any cycle that’s 1s + 25% is a “small stop”,
- anything that’s 1s + 200% is a “major stop”.
You can set these values to any numbers that you want to really tune the board to get what you want.
This then gives us the KPI screen below….which could suddenly give your Continuous Improvement Manager hours and hours of time to work on improvement projects rather than counting product!
When you decide to get an XL we can even make sure that this setup is included in your basic configuration file so you can use the system to add value straight out of the box.
Introducing automated data capture
November 30, 2008 by david.evanson
This week i’ve enjoyed many extremely interesting discussions about the use of automated data capture systems in an improvement process and thought i’d share a condensation of these discussions with you.
I think most people would agree that the reason to measure performance is so that we have hard factual data with which to make the right decisions. With this data we can be assured that we’re focussing on the right area and that our precious and limited resource is working effectively to improve output. When we’re working without data then ‘gut feel’ and assumptions can mean that we’re spending our time on areas that MAY improve output….or may not. We have limited time and resource so use it wisely.
This creates a little process for us: we need to:
- Capture data - with sufficient accuracy,
- Interpret it - with sufficient speed,
- Act on it - with sufficient focus,
- Review actions using it - with sufficient detail.
As we specialise in helping sites with the steps above we often recommend automated systems as these have the advantage of being accurate, autonomous, and needing very little time invested to get instant feedback. The higher the base level of performance, the more sophisticated a measurement tool you want.
For sites that are in an OEE performance window of 40-70% we often recommend our low cost XL800 system - for £2910 (*) a site can get great quality data and eliminate the majority of the resource needed to complete and collate machine based tick sheets. For the purpose of this post i’m ignoring the huge benefits that high performing sites could get from a line based visual display system, and instead focussing on data accuracy.
For sites performing at 60%+ we often recommend our LineView or MachineView systems as they provide highly accurate data with 6 Loss analysis and full reporting and ERP integration.
So when would we recommend that you don’t use one of our systems to capture data?
Well, in these 2 discussions i had this week both individuals wanted their organisation to develop a strong in-house feel and knowledge of OEE through collecting it manually for several months:
- When the team leaders have calculated their OEE manually for several months how aware will they be of how to influence it? Extremely!
- After a team leader has spent 30mins collecting data, running calculations, and preparing reports only to report a 30% shift how important is it that they understand how to influence it? Extremely!
- With this deep knowledge and understanding in place, how valuable will these team leaders find a fully automated system which gives them accurate data, instantly, without needing to analyse operator hand writing, without the need for a calcuator? Extremely!
My personal belief is that the only way to run a modern production line is with accurate data guiding my decision making. I also believe that data and systems are only as valuable as how they’re used.
So if you’re just starting your data journey perhaps it’s worth considering not only the value of collecting data, but also the value in your teams intrinsically understanding it from hours of painful analysis - Vs the cost saving from implementing automated systems and finding some other way of getting this deep understanding.
Food for thought.
My thanks to the Gentlemen in question with whom i had these discussions - a lot of fun and very thought provoking.
*price correct as of 30th November
Measuring OEE in the right place
November 30, 2008 by david.evanson
The Theory of Constraints (TOC):
I’ve taken this definition of TOC from Wikipedia:
“According to TOC, every organization has - at any given point in time - at least one constraint which limits the system’s performance relative to its goal (see Liebig’s law of the minimum). These constraints can be broadly classified as either an internal constraint or a market constraint. In order to manage the performance of the system, the constraint must be identified and managed correctly (according to the Five Focusing Steps below). Over time the constraint may change (e.g., because the previous constraint was managed successfully, or because of a changing environment) and the analysis starts anew.”
In a manufacturing context our role as operational managers is to identify what we ( and the business) want to achieve, identify the constraint to this, work out which measures most accurately measure our progress to this goal, and then manage that constraint accordingly.
Therefore if what you want to achieve is: “Optimise a production line to increase production output” we probably want some form of OEE or mechanical efficiency measure in our management dashboard.
If our goal is “reduce cost to produce product in an overly-capable plant” then we may want some form of cost/tonne, tonne/man-hour, or takt time/cycle time adherence metric in our management dashboard.
So let’s look at the first example and use OEE as a method of managing our constraint.
I don’t believe it’s the OEE of the constraint that you really want to know as this will just tell you what you’ve made….it won’t tell you where you need to work to improve. What you really want to know is how your losses to OEE caused the constraint to run slowly or stop.
So which part of my plant I need to get my measure from?
When you’re running individual machines it’s pretty easy to create an OEE measure for each machine. But what about if you run a series of machines connected by conveyors? Or more specially, what about getting a single OEE figure for an entire production line?
Here are a few examples of how people have measured OEE that we’ve come across over the years…and they have varying degrees of accuracy!
- Cases produced at the palletiser
- Units produced on the most expense machine
- The slowest running piece of equipment
- Raw materials consumed in the process area
- Labels applied to products
- Count at a particular machine not at the end of the line
- Averaging the OEE’s of every machine
Based on TOC the right point to have your measure is the point at which your goal is being confined. In the majority of FMCG plants that I’ve worked in with a goal if increasing output the constraint has typically been the filling machine.
So here are a few TOC questions for you:
- Do your teams know which machine or process is the real constraint to your goal?
- Are your measures targeted on this constraint (really check – I’ve visited plants in which labour is the biggest constraint only to find an OEE measure ruling the site. The outcome; few operators running few machines into the ground to get high OEE’s. Imagine now if this was an aerospace plant – surely as a potential plane passenger you’d want the primary metric to be a defect or quality metric rather than OEE!)?
- Are these measures giving you the information you need to help your teams make the right decisions to reduce loss to your goal?
Please feel free to get in contact with me if you would like to discuss this further. At OptimumFX we spend most of our time helping sites to identify the real bottlenecks to their processes, and then apply the right tools to that bottleneck to measure performance and improve decision making, We regularly help sites create manual collection processes, quick bolt on solutions such as the XL800, or fully integrated enterprise solutions such as LineView and MachineView.
Measuring OEE on a continuous flow line
November 13, 2008 by david.evanson
Something that’s often missed ouf from the standard OEE definition results in one of the questions that frequently comes up when we’re talking to new sites about OEE measurement: “Which machine do I measure my OEE from?”.
Firstly, let’s explore the real value of knowing your OEE: A lot of sites measure what they produce, very few sites know how to use this data to make more. OEE is a great example of this because It’s not how you measure the OEE figure that matters, it’s how you measure your OEE losses that makes the real difference.
The most typical way that most sites measure their output is through cases produced at the end of the line (typically a palletiser). This is by far the most common form of OEE measurement that we come across. Whilst this gives you a good idea of what you’ve made it won’t help you to identify what you’ve lost - which is what OEE is really all about.
The real ‘meat’ of your OEE calculation isn’t the % OEE number - that just tells you what you’ve made, it won’t help you identify what you need to fix/improve to get that number up.
What you really want to be measuring are your losses to OEE:
- 3 Loss: Quality, Performance, Availability
- 6 Loss: Breakdowns, Minor Stops, Speed Loss, Planned Downtime, Quality loss in running, Quality loss on startup.
With this information you have the capability to start CI plans to improve performance. It’s nice to know your OEE….it’s ESSENTIAL to know your losses.
So here’s a question for you to consider: At what point in your manufacturing process is it important to know either the 3 or 6 Losses to OEE?
In my next blog I’m going to explore the “Theory of Constraints” by Goldratt and Cox (see the Amazon link below), and how you need to apply this theory to get an OEE and Loss number that will help you improve.
Here are a couple of web-links that may help you to explore that question:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0566086654
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Constraints
Displaying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
November 5, 2008 by samirshah
Every company has some metrics to measure how well they are performing against targets. A few get these measures correct. The idea is to measure The Key Metrics so as to not over complicate and dilute the absolute key indicators for success.
Imagine driving a car….the dashboard provides me with key indicators to show how it is performing. There are some indicators that I react to immediately and others that warn me so I can plan ahead. To give an example of this:
- Immediate Reaction - If the speed indicator shows that the current speed is above the legal limit there will be an instant reaction to reduce that speed
- Planned intervention - If the fuel dial shows that there is a quarter tank left, I would make sure that I fill up at the next available opportunity
Now imagine if I received this feedback daily or weekly? It will be too late before I realise I need to do something and will be likely to receive a speeding ticket or left stranded as there was no fuel left. This is how most companies measure their Key Performance indicators. It is too late to remedy what happened yesterday. Won’t it be immensely beneficial to indicate the current performance to target in real time?
The XL800 system enables you to give this instantaneous feedback on the level of performance to the people who are driving your production. They can use this information to make an immediate change or a planned intervention at their earliest convenience. The important thing is that they are given the information to enable them to make a certain decision.
You can customise your XL800 system to display whatever performance measures you deem are important. It is capable of measuring over 100KPIs and this gives you the flexibility to customise and display your chosen KPIs to ensure that you are tracking the measures that will ensure your ultimate success!
Follow this link to get more information on defining the right KPIs for you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_performance_indicator
XL800 and Takt Times
November 3, 2008 by david.evanson
One of the useful concepts to master in Lean Manufacturing is the concept of Takt Time.
Simply, the Takt time of a process is the maximum amount of time needed to produce a unit of a product to meet a customer demand. I like to think of the takt time of a manufacturing process as being like the “heart beat” of the line; it’s the pulse that demolishes your production plans and whacks out those units of product.
When i think of a “heart beat” a number of ideas pop into my mind - i wonder about the effect of an irregular heart beat on you or I, or perhaps a heart beat that’s too slow or too fast, or maybe a heart beat that’s been slowed down for a few days to cope with a change in the weather, or because it’s Tuesday today….no really! The great thing is that whilst this sounds like a strange thing to say about a human, we often experience it when we look at machines.
If your heart beat was erratic what would you want? I would be at my local casualty limply yet forcefully asking for an ECG pronto! Yet when we visit some factories quite often people have no idea at all that their factory heart beat, their takt times, are all over the place.
At OptimumFX we want to help you monitor the heart beat on your production line to ensure that it’s always fit and healthy. We can even help you set up alarms if the heart beat falls out of parameters to ensure that you always get the best from your machines and meet your targets.
Simply install an XL800 on your produciton line for a free trial to see a real time display of your current Takt time.
Best practice tip:
- Use your Takt time reading to set shift targets
- A great way to drive results on the plant floor is to drive production based on takt time - giving you teams the opportunity to “win” their production shifts.
Popular takt-time related KPI’s:
- Target “an automatically updated production target that increases based on takt time),
- Actual (the current production count),
- Efficiency (how far ahead of behind production is running in terms of a percentage).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takt_time
Introducing the new XL 800 OEE monitoring system
October 23, 2008 by admin
OptimumFX are delighted to be launching the all new XL 800 system.
The XL 800 is a uniquely powerful tool that not only acts as a line based operator management system, it also houses an entire suite of analysis and reporting tools.
What the XL 800 can do:
- It can help you to:
- View over 100 KPI’s including analysis of: OEE, Availability, Efficiency, Quality, Takt Time, Cycle Time, Job performance, Shift performance, Changeover time, Downtime in specific fault modes and run rates.
- Manage your teams by setting break times and changeover times - always know how long the line has been stopped and when breaks are due to end
- Free up your management time; your manager no longer need to speed hours manually collecting and adding up manual collection sheets - with 6 button presses they can have shift reports printed in up to 5 formats, including Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word.
Over the coming weeks keep visiting this website to find out more about the great ways in which you can unlock the true OEE potential of your lines using XL OEE systems.
