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6 STEPS FOR SUCCESSFUL MANUFACTURING LINE RESTART AFTER A SHUTDOWN

North American manufacturing plants are gearing up for a return to work following weeks of downtime. And while the momentum to get back to a normal production schedule is tempting for many businesses, this process should involve more than simply flipping a switch. While a shutdown period can be devastating to a manufacturer, it also presents an opportunity to optimize equipment, and reduce the possibility of an equipment-based shutdown in the near future. Once the dust of the pandemic begins to settle, and maximum levels of productivity can be attained, machinery failure can rob a business of hopes of recovery.

To smoothly transition from shutdown to full production, we recommend a methodical approach that ensures uninterrupted operations in the foreseeable future. Doing so requires attention to maintenance and exercising caution when going back online.

 

BEFORE STARTING YOUR ASSEMBLY LINE OR LINING MACHINE

As we detailed in our article on equipment shutdown procedures, we highly recommend focusing first on the maintenance of your machinery. A shutdown period is an ideal time for repairing issues or attending to any preventive maintenance according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.

Maintenance is especially essential for companies that had to shut down operations abruptly, and might not have had an opportunity to store or protect equipment properly because of the government suspension. When returning to your plant for a restart, first take the time to check for changes, updates, upgrades, and missing parts. Doing so now can help ensure maximum productivity during a ramp-up to a normal schedule.

In general, we advise you not to skip a step — to work sequentially so as not to delay a restart of optimal and rapid production rate.

 

Greasing and lubrication

For companies in particular that have a production schedule that usually stops at night or weekends, and for older generation machines, we highly advise following the daily routine outlined in your assembly line manuals, such as ensuring that lubrication points are adequately greased.

If you can not find the documentation or for any other reason, do not hesitate to contact your manufacturer, who can provide guidance. Bearing failure caused by inadequate lubrication can lead to costly repairs, additional downtime, and, in a worst-case scenario, a large mass force release that can damage property and lives.

If your company was able to follow optimal shutdown protocols including proper storage and maintenance, start-up should be essentially worry-free.

For example, when we ship a new machine, it is often in transit between our factory and the customer, and our equipment spends several weeks or months before the customer is ready to put it in its final place and then in production. The equipment doesn’t suffer from this transit period as we made sure before to follow all steps before putting it in “storage mode”. Well-prepared, equipment can remain dormant for a period of time without affecting its optimal operation.

But, even when equipment has been properly prepared for dormancy, it is essential to follow a startup routine. When you start a machine, you have to make sure that all the connections have been made. If you are at all uncertain about properly reconnecting the equipment, contact the equipment manufacturer as startup procedure assistance is often part of warranty protection.

 

WHEN STARTING YOUR MANUFACTURING LINE

For this restart phase, our first recommendation is to assign a technician from the maintenance team to supervise the process. If possible, we advise you to start slowly, be attentive to the machine, and work with technicians or operators who previously operated the production line and who also have experience with maintenance. The team that routinely runs the equipment can more quickly detect anomalies in operation, while problems can go unnoticed with a new group.

 

Steps to follow to restart your equipment

1. Cleaning

Clean the equipment when it has been stored for a long time, including the outside, the machine, the panels, and internal mechanisms (feeding equipment, stacking and packing sections, etc.) . Pay particular attention to the sensors, especially optical sensors, which are the most sensitive such as vision systems and camera lenses. Follow manufacturer’s recommendations for cleaning, and avoid accessing internal components that are not user-serviceable.

 

2. Visual appearance

Check that the machine has no physical damage apparent to the eye. If there were some temporary ‘home’ changes or user modifications made before shutdown due to a lack of time, now is the perfect opportunity to make these quick fixes permanent. It also is the right time to document these modifications as improvements to technical drawings or maintenance log notes.

Once the visual inspection is completed, you can contact the manufacturer for guidance on improvement or to provide feedback on their machines. Also, review your preventive maintenance procedures and determine if any additional actions are required or outstanding prior to startup.

 

3. Connection

Reconnect the machine to the power source and its fuses. Then test the security equipment to make sure that no alarm codes appear on the electrical panels. Make sure all guards are in place and secure before putting power on the machine, look at the HMI and any electrical components with a display screen user interface to determine if all is properly connected.

 

4. Batteries

Once you have made sure that everything is functional on the machine, check the batteries and recharge them to avoid any potential damage. Consider changing non rechargeable batteries that may have been depleted even while the machine was turned off. Examples include the batteries for PLCs, Robots and other electrical components.

If you followed our shutdown advice, your batteries should be in good shape.

 

5. Soft start

After all of the electrical and mechanical checklists/checks have been made, we recommend putting the machine first in “jogging” mode, cycle by cycle, to see if there are any problems. After that, you can continue in auto mode, but a low-speed cadence is recommended to make it easier to identify any problems. Depending on the complexity of your manufacturing line (e.g. different assembly steps), it is actually suggested to go with a low rate at the start. This will take a few hours at most.

 

“Patience is a key element of success.” Bill Gates

 

Shutdowns are difficult, economically and on your production line. It is tempting to rush back into production as soon as your business is given the green light. Take the time, however, to exercise caution. By attending to maintenance, fixing apparent problems, and tempering equipment restart, you can avoid costly downtime in the future.

 

Orientech checklist to successfully restart production and manufacturing line after a shutdown

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Fanuc robotics application

3 WAYS PARTS AUTOMATION HELPS BUSINESSES AND PEOPLE

The global Coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented in modern times. Governments, individuals, and businesses are finding that they need to adapt rapidly to this exceptional situation. Distilleries in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere have started producing and bottling hand sanitizer instead of their usual liquors and spirits. Increased need for medical devices, such as ventilators, has spurred talk that automotive plants could divert their production to manufacturing critical supplies and equipment.

These measures are made possible by extremely resilient and creative human beings and teams, but parts automation is a key component of this response.

What exactly is parts automation? At its most basic definition, parts automation is the reduction of human involvement in a process or procedure of handling parts or products, usually in manufacturing. Through automation, manufacturers are less dependent on people for various production steps. Automation can be accomplished either semi-autonomously (automating part of a process while retaining some manual component) or fully-autonomously (no human interaction at all). Almost all industries have moved toward automation to reach three main goals:

  • Improving lives
  • Increasing output
  • Improving efficiency or cost

 

BETTER LIVING THROUGH AUTOMATION

Today, most people in highly industrialized countries feel pressured by time — mostly the lack of time to accomplish desired or necessary tasks. Time-saving measures, even seemingly small ones, translate to significant value. When combined with other technology such as apps that remind you where you parked your car or device features that instantly switch to silent mode when you enter a certain place (such as work), you can easily free up hours of productivity.

This gives people the chance to use those saved hours in other ways, such as for personal development, taking some time for their own well-being, or just having the time to finish work that was previously taken up by an inefficient process..

One company that has leveraged parts automation to improve the lives of people working for their customers is Fanuc, an automation company specializing in heavy industrial applications. Fanuc provides everything from small pick and place robots to large automated manufacturing lines.

Fanuc saw an opportunity to improve one of its customer’s manufacturing processes by installing a new full automation line. Usually, this move would mean making workers redundant. However, by putting a regularly scheduled maintenance system in place, the company increased machine efficiency while keeping people employed by hiring and training maintenance workers.

This means that the people working for them can continue to live their lives without the fear of redundancy through automation, as is often the fear on the shop floor whenever change comes in the manufacturing industry.

Parts automation also improves lives by making a greater variety of products available to more people, as small parts are manufactured for a fraction of the price.

How to implement a preventive maintenance strategy to enhance production

 

OUTPUT IMPROVES ACROSS THE BOARD THROUGH AUTOMATION

Humans are not perfect — it’s what makes us unique and interesting. When these flaws result in mistakes, however, output suffers. This is especially apparent in repetitive or monotonous tasks, where issues such as attention span, fatigue and stress can cause wide variations in quality and speed. Take, for example, a manufacturing line that produces plastic electrical fittings — a single worker may be tasked with placing each fitting onto a conveyor in a single line of parts. Then the part goes off for further processing. Staying with this example, consider the following:

  1. How do you control the process of placing the fitting onto the line?
  2. How do you ensure that fittings aren’t dropped or damaged?
  3. How do you ensure spacing between fittings for machines downstream?
  4. How do you ensure all of these steps are done the same way every time, especially if product orientation is crucial?

All of these are issues that can dramatically affect your overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and have an impact on your output.

This is where full parts automation demonstrates tremendous value. By using a pick and place robot, for example, you can not only ensure repeatability of the process (as the robot will place the fitting on the line with the same spacing, at the same orientation and with no damage), but you can also increase the speed of the process.

You are no longer subject to human limits on strength and endurance but can rely on the power and durability of the electric motors driving the robot. With automation, you now have control over how the product is picked, placed, and spaced with repeatability. This is another area where Fanuc has introduced automation at customer sites to improve speed and quality.

Fanuc Robotics stacking and packing

 

AUTOMATION SAVES MONEY

In the previous example, we talked about controlling repeatability and speed through full parts automation, but by doing this, we have also gained the ability to control efficiency.

On any production line, you need to balance the line to the speed of your slowest machine so that you can have a smooth flow of product through the entire line and avoid either starving a downstream machine or causing blockages by feeding too much product to a machine. By putting a robot in place, for example, you can now request a pick and place tempo that the robot will meet every single time. This avoids expensive stoppages from having to clear blockages, and increases efficiency by reducing the possibility of starving downstream machines.

Automation requires an investment, but the increase in productivity and efficiency leads to a positive return on this investment in just a few months. The cost savings and productivity of an assembly robot or other automated system then reverberate, delivering returns for years in the future. And, since it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit workers willing to perform repetitive tasks for long hours, manufacturers experience even greater ROI.

The cost of automation has also dropped over the past 30 years. Robot prices have fallen in comparison to the steadily rising cost of labor compensation in manufacturing. While labor costs have approached 220% of 1990 figures, robot prices have dropped to 50% of the cost.  This trend will only continue, as demand from emerging economies drives increased use of automation.

 

FULL OR SEMI-AUTOMATION?

One question remains: should you go with full or semi-automation? The answer depends, on your company’s production goals, your product requirements and your volumes.

Ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Do you have a skilled labor force that could be improved by introducing some automated “help”?
  2. Do you need to have flexibility in your process? And be able to speed a process up or down quickly?
  3. Do you have tight budget constraints?
  4. Is your product uniquely shaped, presenting assembly challenges for a machine?
  5. Is your average assembly-line defect rate with manual assembly steps acceptable?

If you answered yes to most or all of those questions, semi-automation is likely your best choice. Semi automation allows you to improve your current processes and redeploy your labor force, without making the full commitment of capital expenditure and time to implement a fully automated production system.

If you answered no, then full automation is probably the best for your production needs. It allows you to produce and handle the most amount of product in the shortest amount of time with the fewest errors. Full automation, however, must be planned holistically, with processes considering all inputs and outputs from across the plant to ensure efficiency.

But remember, each case is unique and will have widely varying requirements and limitations, so it is best to consult an expert in the field. If you have any questions about automating your processes and part handling, contact Orientech to see how we can assist you.

 

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8 AUTOMATED ASSEMBLY LINE PITFALLS TO AVOID
Automation will help manufacturers lower costs, increase yields, decrease cycle times, improve product quality, and gain a competitive edge. Most manufacturing companies want high-speed assembly machines, conveyors, feeders, fixtures, robots, vision systems, and other equipment capable of repeatable, high-volume production. 

For the best results, automation projects should be competitively priced and delivered on time to ensure a positive return on investment. However, manufacturers demand more value from automation equipment today, because they are under intense pressure to compete and control production costs. As automotive parts, consumer goods, electronics, medical devices, and other products get smaller and more complex, demand for automation continues to increase.

 

Unfortunately, the end user often repeats common automation mistakes because of time constraints and budget concerns. Engineers and projects teams can avoid these problems by taking into account the following potential problems, suggested by machine builders and systems integrators.

 

Lack of Real-Time Information

Accurate real-time information is the foundation of optimal production lines. Production and maintenance metrics give you visibility into your production line, so you can leverage automation, view production downturns, and achieve quantity, quality, speed, cost and profitability objectives.

 

Poor Production Quality

Access to the right real-time data also can help optimize product quality. Several factors contribute to poor quality. Production line visibility helps you pinpoint areas of concern so you can focus on remedying quality issues with training, maintenance, recalibration, and other tasks.

 

Excessive Downtime

From maintenance issues to fluctuation in demand, downtime is a hurdle that impedes productivity and continual improvement. With well-managed processes and full visibility of production, operations can better align with demand, and maintenance can be anticipated and scheduled in a manner that keeps your production lines minimally disrupted.

 

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Diminished Returns from Lean Manufacturing

Your company touts continuous improvement, but if you’ve noticed diminishing returns from your Kaizen efforts, it is time to embrace automation. Combine all of your resources and talents efficiently with automation, and use the new “wins” in productivity to fuel future smaller steps towards greater productivity.

 

Unbalanced Station Workloads

Unbalanced workloads lead to bottlenecks and other production problems. These issues have a domino effect, reducing quality, quantity, speed, and more. The main causes of unbalanced station workloads are lack of visibility and systems that do not coordinate interlocked tasks.

 

Failure to Adapt to Changing Demand

Changing demand is an inevitable component of manufacturing. You can best manage demand fluctuations with in-depth process visibility, production optimization, and load balancing. Agility means the ability to efficiently use resources — to do so, you need to know what is happening with your production line at all times.

 

Excessive WIP and Changeover Time

When looking for ways to optimize your production line, look to your work-in-progress stage. A certain level of WIP is necessary, due to manufacturing requirements, but the goal should be to efficiently move these lines along as quickly as possible.

Similarly, inefficiencies can be found in the changeover from one product or component to another. Scrutinize these steps along the way and look for opportunities to reduce these downtime moments.

 

New Product Launch Slowdowns

Whether you are using a new production line or an existing manufacturing process, a new product can slow down operations. Some delay may be necessary, as new products can be accompanied with unknown variables, but an automated and visible production process helps manufacturers be nimble in their production.

 

These are just a few of the challenges the manufacturing engineers face in 2020. Fortunately, there are systems and applications available today that organizations can utilize to provide the user experience workers and customers expect, and the functionality and data organizations require to succeed.

Whatever the challenges may be, organizations cannot ignore them if they want to continue to ride the manufacturing resurgence.

 

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MANUFACTURING/AUTOMATION ENGINEER: THE CHALLENGES NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

Without question, engineering is one of the most demanding professions. Successful production engineering requires mastering skills and being agile and responsive to change, but that’s just to start. Here are some of the challenges of manufacturing and automation engineering, and how to turn obstacles into successes :

 

SPEED-TO-MARKET

Manufacturers must meet extremely tight and stressful deadlines to market their products. Projects generally take time, cost, and quality into account in the manufacturing sector and thus tend to be tightly controlled and rigidly managed. Failing to meet deadlines means companies risk losing millions of dollars in revenue and potential profit.

The ability to change during the project is limited by strict monitoring and rigidity. Many of these projects require a commitment to design from the beginning, with little flexibility to adapt as new information emerges or requirements change. This can be challenging and stressful for engineers who want to produce the best possible product but face time constraints.

Speed to market also introduces pressure to ensure the right production cadences and to consider personnel management in the context of a shortage. Balancing speed with quality and overall objectives as requires fully understanding the following factors and additional hurdles:

  • Production deadlines,
  • Timelines to meet goals,
  • Client relationships,
  • Preparing for the rapid evolution of new technologies,
  • The prejudice that engineers are supposed to know everything,
  • Working with less skilled labor, since many companies don’t want to invest in training.

 

BETTER, FASTER, CHEAPER

Workers often spend time performing manual tasks that could be automated or conducting software-managed maintenance. The lack of awareness in companies that do not invest properly in technology about operations, machine condition, and quality factors creates a lot of time-consuming work for engineers — not to mention the lack of competitive advantage that results from less-than-efficient processes.

 

COMPANY STRATEGIES

Registered Engineer, Licensed Electrical Contractor, and Certified Automation Professional are important certifications, but they require continuous education.

Management should always recognize these three priorities:

  • Safety: each team member should be seen as a key to safety, set an example, and take care of others,
  • Process improvement: provide targets to resolve service and performance problems,
  • Personal development: it involves initiatives that generate people’s knowledge and also bring value to the business. Personal development keeps employees excited about learning and applying new information and helps the business to grow and improve operations, creating a long-lasting relationship between both.

Download The Ultimate Checklist For Engineers To Be In Control and Avoid Downtime In Your Production by clicking HERE

 

KNOWLEDGE

Another issue no one talks about is the need for engineers to train to keep their skills up to date. Most of the time, when starting a new job or project in automation, there is no intensive electrical/mechanical training on location. However, technologies evolve exponentially and quickly.

Today, you need to be an expert in these new tools to be able to identify diagnostics through networks, software, intelligent instrumentation, and standards. Even if you are encouraged to attend educational conferences and read articles on industry developments, it is often difficult to find free time. Developing innovative skills and solutions and finding areas for process improvement and new opportunities in the plants are ongoing challenges.

Automation engineers also need to stay updated on trends and applications of innovations in computing, electricity, and mechanics. They should stay up-to-date through publications with many examples of applications in which a specific feature has been implemented.

Check out our video of Life Sciences Assembly System, a perfect example of the challenges faced by today’s engineers.

FLEXIBILITY

Most modern processes require a degree of flexibility in automation, especially to ensure that efficiency-boosting innovations are leveraged.

This applies to both hardware and software. Features like greater recipe management and detailed tracking/tracing capabilities help improve productivity. Using multi-purpose machines with flexible control systems, including those that use field-programmable gate arrays, allow the processors to be reprogrammed after deployment for agility in the field. Also, motor/drive combinations can adapt to different applications as needed.

The new best-in-class standard approach for OEMs is flexibility—both in the systems they use to produce their machines as well as in the machines they produce. The need for flexibility is ultimately driven by the final end customers’ customization requirements, which, in turn, drives the OEM’s need for flexibility.

The need for flexibility also impacts hiring new engineers. Manufacturing engineers are responsible for designing a process of making products that’s as cost-effective as possible while satisfying customer needs. A candidate should demonstrate knowledge of corrective action procedures that formally address customer complaints. They should also be able to describe how they’d thoroughly investigate activity on the production line. Problems could include human error, poor testing procedures, or unsuitable machines. Pay attention to examples the applicant cites from experience. Here’s what to look for in an answer:

  • Knowledge of corrective action procedures,
  • Analytical and process engineering skills,
  • Communication skills with workers and other engineers.

 

THE COMFORT ZONE

Although skill and experience are quite important in the product engineering process, becoming too comfortable with a system can lead to resisting new techniques, features, and equipment that can spark improvements.

Automation partners can be great allies because of their experience, but automation engineers can be reluctant to reach out for assistance. This reluctance might be because, as professionals, the engineers might not want to seem in the dark about the latest trends or best practices.

 

MANPOWER SHORTAGE

In recent years, lack of skills has been a major concern for US manufacturers. In 2014, it was reported that over 75% of respondents in the manufacturing sector had a shortage of skilled workers, particularly in positions requiring more than a high school diploma, but less than a four-year college degree.

Research by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte predicts that there could be up to 2.4 million unfilled jobs in the manufacturing sector between 2018 and 2028, up from the initial estimate of 600,000. Baby Boomers are aging and retiring, and there are simply not enough skilled workers to fill the positions they are leaving.

While the manufacturing sector has seen incredible growth over the past two decades, manufacturers have the challenge of finding a solution to meet the demand.

This quest for a “better, faster, cheaper” system, process, or model, is not always ideal. Efficiencies in time and cost certainly benefit processes, but innovation drives true progress.

 

LACK OF COMMUNICATION

Increasingly, engineers need to be able to communicate and cooperate with other people at the factory, particularly the operators who deal with the system daily and know when production is going well and when an unusual situation is happening.

This need for collaboration and communication will persist, especially regarding key factors such as unit cost, cost of energy, and other areas of process efficiency improvements.

These are just a few of the challenges faced in 2020 by the production engineers. Luckily, today there are tools and software that companies can use to provide employees and customers with user experience, and the features and information organizations need to succeed.

Whatever the challenges may be, organizations cannot ignore them if they want to continue to ride the manufacturing resurgence.

 

OUR RECOMMENDATION TO FACE THESE CHALLENGES

  • Evaluate regularly your processes and technologies. You need to understand if it takes too much time to deliver a final product.
  • Check your internal and supply chain processes, design and manufacturing efficiency (or lack thereof), and the technologies used to support your operations, from design to completion. You can likely find many areas for improvement and anticipate the next challenges.
  • Create a better alignment between sales and engineering by informing sales about the processes required to deliver your company’s products at the level of quality you promise. Make sure they inform your department about future changes of the final products so that you can be prepared to make amendments to your processes if needed.
  • Inform the customer of your production processes so that he understands how much time you have left before delivering. Communication in both ways should become a standard as they will enable you to elevate your quality work.

 

 

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