Are your machines as productive as they can be? This tool can find out.

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Frasers – Network affiliate of Canadian Manufacturing.com – December 11, 2014 – “If you can measure it, then you can manage it.” That’s the motto of Burlington, Ont.-based Memex Automation, a leader in the connection, monitoring and management of machines, sensors and processes in manufacturing.

The company’s MERLIN OEE tool monitors machines in real-time.

“To be able to visualize how quickly your machines are operating allows you to react quickly to situations,” the company says. “Measuring what actually happens on the shop floor allows you to fine tune your processes using Lean manufacturing techniques. By applying the Theory of Constraints principle to monitoring and identifying a constraint, you can improve operator productivity and satisfaction by helping them perform faster, reduce their data collection overhead, all by using automatic and accurate tracking systems. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is the key performance indicator that drives this machine monitoring process forward.”

There are many clear benefits to machine monitoring. Users can see the productivity and increased profitability as it happens in real-time, and identify problems fast. This can increase plant-wide productivity in the range of 10 to 50 per cent. Dashboard metrics are available for everyone on the shop floor to see, and it’s a time-saving, money-saving solution that will increase productivity and profitability in the long run

MERLIN is designed to monitor every machine in your shop — CNC machines, non-CNC machines, fabrication centres and manual processes — all tied together in a production process manufacturing execution system.

MERLIN OEE solution software can find every little area for improvement in your cycle times to best utilize your machines. It knows when the machines are in cycle and when they are not in cycle, and what is causing the machine to slow down. While most companies believe they are operating to their full capacity, it turns out they are, in fact, far from it. MERLIN OEE will show you that there is always room for improvement, and you will always be able to operate faster, and more efficiently, than you already are.

If you can identify the constraints (where the bottlenecks are happening in the production process), then you can improve your throughput and increase your overall profitability.

To see the full article, please click here.

Magellan Aerospace sees huge savings thanks to new Manufacturing Execution System

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Frasers – Network affiliate of Canadian Manufacturing.com – December 12, 2014 – Alignment and automation are key success factors for Magellan Aerospace. But the Kitchener, Ont.-based company was experiencing a challenge: its standalone machines were not reaching production targets. There were far too many downtime events happening on the shop floor — so much that the company was at the point of considering buying another machine to make up for the missed targets. Shop floor supervisors would manually record information regarding the start and end times, and quantity produced during the shift, but the information didn’t provide the detail that was needed.

Magellan’s relentless pursuit of excellence led it straight to MERLIN, a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications platform by Memex Automation. MERLIN (Manufacturing Execution Real-time Lean Information Network) can use MTConnect and other protocols to connect the shop floor to the top floor, so that anyone with a need to know can use its information to increase production and income from operations, all while raising Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) to world-class levels.

Magellan met with Memex Automation’s executive team in 2011, and installed the MERLIN hardware and software on various machines at its Kitchener plant. Jonathan Ung, the continuous improvement co-ordinator in charge of tracking the plant’s progress with MERLIN, gathered some very promising ROI results.

“We deployed MERLIN on our FMS/Makino cell,” said Ung. “There are four robot-controlled CNC machines in the cell, and we also outfitted three standalone CNC machines configured in a cell-like environment. The standalone machines utilize the MERLIN Ax9150 hardware board along with the G55 handheld scanner, giving us visibility of the machines that we previously did not have. The Makino cell has the MERLIN Operating Portal deployed on it, which gives us detailed machine information right on the shop floor. We feed MERLIN with work order and product standard data directly from our CINCOM ERP system.”

The MERLIN data indicated there were far too many downtime events occurring. Magellan shared this information with its team, and with the help of the MERLIN software, was able to reduce those downtime events from 400 hours per month to 100 hours —  a net increase in machining capacity of 100 hours per month per machine.

“Multiply that by the hourly machining cost and Magellan was able to capture real savings of over $30,000 per month against an initial price of $20,000 for MERLIN,” said Ung. “That’s a very satisfying payback on the technology.”

Memex applied its “Roadmap to Success” methodology, a valuable tool to use in analyzing and interpreting the information MERLIN makes available. After completing the corrective actions the Roadmap suggested, Magellan was able to show that MERLIN brought its OEE up from 36 per cent to a sustained 85 per cent. The time spent previously gathering data was decreased dramatically because the data was now available to management and operators.

Magellan now sees there is more possibility for MERLIN on the shop floor. The company believes it is just scratching the surface of MERLIN’s capabilities and is looking forward to seeing what else can be accomplished with the system.

To see the full article, please click here.

Building Towards Growth

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December 5, 2014 – PLANT magazine posted its annual Manufacturer’s Outlook for 2015. Dave McPhail, Memex Automation’s CEO, was once again part of the magazine’s panel of industry experts discussing the growth outlook for Canada’s manufacturing sector.

Regarding confidence among manufacturer’s, in a survey done for the 2015 Outlook, 60% of those surveyed are cautiously optimistic about the coming year while 29% see market conditions as “very favourable.”

To read the report, please download the pdf here.

To visit PLANT’s website, please click here.

Boosting Machine Tool Productivity

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Canadian Metalworking Magazine – November 2014

From cutting edge to common sense. This article explains how monitoring machines can solve a lot of issues on the plant floor and increase productivity.

To see the full article, please click here, and flip to page 34.

Mazak Unveils Next Generation iSMART Factory Concept

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Modern Machine Tools – November 24, 2014

Yamazaki Mazak headquarters in Aichi, Japan, has recently announced its new forward-thinking Mazak iSMART Factory concept. A dynamic, ongoing and limitless concept, the next-generation iSMART Factory represents Mazak’s all-encompassing manufacturing vision. Mazak will eventually designate all ten of its manufacturing operations as iSMART Factories, the first being the Oguchi factory in Japan and now the North American factory in Florence, Kentucky.

The Mazak iSMART Factory uses advanced manufacturing cells and systems together with full digital integration to achieve free-flow data sharing in terms of process control and operation monitoring. In the iSMART Factory, the MTConnect® open communications protocol works with process support software and provides connectivity and the capability to monitor then harvest data from all the different production floor machines, cells, devices and processes.

Through PCs and portable electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets, both management and manufacturing easily access the same real-time manufacturing data to improve overall productivity efficiency and responsiveness to customer/market changes.

“For Mazak, iSMART Factory is a vision – the complete digital integration of the factory with state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, automation and advanced manufacturing practices. The name establishes a philosophy – a credo of sorts for Mazak that is unique to our operations but symbolizes our commitment toward the ultimate smart factory,” said Brian Papke, president of Mazak Corporation. “While the name is new, our U.S. factory has long demonstrated a commitment to growth and technological advancement, with a critical part of that strategy being such factors as plant-wide connectivity, automation and optimized production flow. At Mazak, benefits have and continue to be significant increases in machine utilization, shorter throughput times, elimination of non-value added operations, Production-On-Demand capability and more efficient part machining.”

In Kentucky, full simultaneous 5-axis, Multi-Tasking and DONE IN ONE® machining technologies, advanced automation that allows for different machines within the same cell and innovative machining systems highlight Mazak’s North American iSMART Factory operations. Also under the iSMART Factory umbrella in Kentucky, a fully automated paint line provides the versatility to completely change over from one color to the next very quickly and will be digitally monitored through the same technology.

Additionally, all the various manufacturing systems in the plant are designed for fast changeovers and allow for producing in small lot sizes and with a higher mix of components. The systems are also all integrated to the MTConnect standard, and further advances in 2015 will incorporate the factory floor data with Mazak’s ERP system.

To see the full article, please click here.