With Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) you can identify and isolate the issues affecting the performance of your machines or lines – and make data-driven decisions around how to improve performance and achieve greater ROI.

OEE gives you the competitive edge you need

OEE is a process that measures how a machine or line is performing against how it should be performing. It tracks every minute of performance and monitors every alarm, alert or stoppage to tell you where issues are arising and why. The resulting data helps you make continuous line improvements so your equipment is running as efficiently as possible.

OEE monitors the following to gauge overall effectiveness:

Availability. Planned downtime and breakdowns.
Performance. Minor stops and speed loss.
Quality. Number of rejects.

Setting it up is simple. QSI’s seamless OEE solutions often don’t require any additional hardware on plant machinery – nor do they change your equipment in any way. All we do is install a server loaded with software customized to your individual needs. This software runs constantly in the background, gathering information and logging data, so that you can identify areas for continuous improvement.

OEE also means overall employee effectiveness

OEE doesn’t just help your equipment run better – it helps your employees do more.

For example, if a machine occasionally stops for a fault and the operator fixes the issue every time without getting maintenance involved, there’s a greater chance that the fault could lead to an hour of downtime across three shifts. By putting an OEE system in place, this fault is identified as a major contributor to downtime so the maintenance team can step in and focus their attention on resolving the issue in order to get the machines and the line at peak performance.

There’s no more writing down error logs on a whiteboard. No more manually entering data into a database. And no more generating Excel reports. QSI’s seamless OEE solutions deliver insight and value to everyone in your plant from operators through leadership

With OEE your plant engineer has the data they need to see what design or programming improvements can be made to improve your overall output. Maintenance knows what components are liable to break down and when, allowing them to proactively replace parts and schedule preventative maintenance. Operators have an at-a-glance baseline for performance that they can seek to improve.

On top of that, management can boost your company’s bottom line by doing more with less. How? With the constant incremental improvement made possible by OEE, you can get more out of your existing equipment – rather than making expensive equipment purchases or line expansions. This makes your company competitive against others in the field, as well as against other plants within the same company.

OEE is a smart, low-risk decision

The ease with which OEE can be introduced means that implementing it is a smart, low-risk decision. It doesn’t change the way your line runs, and it doesn’t require an investment in expensive equipment. On top of that, you’ll be able to see important trends almost immediately – and make smart, data-driven decisions within just 6-8 weeks. You’ll get more out of your equipment and your workers, along with a jump on the competition.

Speak to QSI today about implementing OEE on your lines, and watch your production efficiency and bottom line grow.

The post Why OEE is Your Ticket to Optimum Efficiency – and ROI. appeared first on Quantum Solutions Inc..

That’s a total of 121 food product recalls as of the middle of October, 2019, according to Consumer Affairs. By the time you read this, it’s likely to be even higher. This includes over 130,000 pounds of fully-cooked diced chicken, thousands of crates of avocados, and even red chili ingredients. Do any of your products or processes use any of these as source materials? How do you know?

And it’s not just food.

The Consumer Products Safety Commission lists nearly 200 products, from bed rails to electric bicycles, that have been recalled in 2019 alone, for safety reasons.

Medicines, cosmetics, and even automobiles can also get recalled as they may sometimes cause complications, not work properly, or even increase the chance of illness.

Not all recalls are dangerous, though. But all recalls are serious.

And if your manufacturing facility does not have a track and trace system in place, you’re at risk for major implications in the event of a recall.

An Overwhelming Scenario, Averted

Picture this: the Food and Drug Administration has just issued a recall for one of your suppliers. The FDA has declared that there are traces of some allergen in products that are not supposed to have that allergen. It could be gluten, or eggs, or even peanuts. Obviously, this could be a big risk for you if you have included those now-tainted products in your production line. Everything you make that includes those recalled products may need to be recalled, too.

How are you going to get those products back? And out of which batches? How far back does the issue go? How soon can you shut down your line and replace the offending elements with an appropriate, non-recalled substitute? The problems just keep adding on.

If you don’t have a system in place already, you could spend hundreds of person-hours digging through records, looking for hand-written notes telling you which of your shifts used that tainted supply. Then you would have to painstakingly look through a second set of notes, searching for where each of those batches went, cross-referencing to find just where the trouble started and when it stopped. After that you’d have to manually monitor the recall itself, wondering if you’ve gotten everything or if a pallet or two slipped through.

All these add headaches, frustration, and uncertainty to an already stressful situation.

Or, you could simply dive into your track and trace system with a few touches, and automatically get a report telling you which shifts used the tainted supply, where the outputs went, and what you need to do now.

It’s much simpler. Still not any fun, but at least you’ve eliminated some of the headaches. That is, if you have a track and trace system in place at all.

The good thing is, such a system is not just for recalls. There are multiple benefits to implementation.

Multiple Uses

The beauty of a well-integrated track and trace system is that it provides a positive return on investment even before it eases your suffering through a recall. From inventory management to evaluating the efficiency of the production line, knowing (not just guessing) where each and every element is in the process is invaluable.

Take a look at this case study, where Quantum Solutions implemented a track and trace system for a Kraft Heinz Company facility. You’ll see that despite obstacles like restricted space and large amounts of data required to be collected and stored, QSI and Kraft were able to work together to meet or exceed all target outcomes. One big take-away? Implementing a track and trace system resulted in a 99.8% success rate for tracking pallets without any operator involvement at all.

You are surrounded by these systems already, from UPS and FedEx to Domino’s. When it’s easier to find out where your pepperoni is than to know how much raw material you’ve got in inventory, it’s time to investigate some better solutions.

When you’re ready to begin verifying what’s going on, where your materials are, and what you need to do to get the most out of every line, give us a call. We’re here to help.

The post Ease Recall Stress & Improve Inventory Management with a Track & Trace System appeared first on Quantum Solutions Inc..

Quantum Solutions Inc. (QSI) implemented an iGPS tracking system for the Kraft Heinz Company’s facility in Garland, Texas. Kraft recognized the need for a system to be able to track their pallets of product, giving greater visibility into the manufacturing and packaging processes.

Reasons for Track and Trace Systems

Track and trace systems are a critical component to packaging integration and processes, allowing a manufacturing facility to track and trace the product back to a specific production batch or the raw materials utilized. Track and trace allows for:

• Greater visibility into the product’s manufacturing and components, providing increased efficiencies and productivity levels
• More efficient supply chain tracking; with the ability to follow materials and products as they travel through a manufacturing facility or a supply chain
• Manufacturers to identify areas of inefficiency and make necessary adjustments to optimize processes
• Manufacturers increased visibility, and thus sustainability, into processes and the ability to identify areas of diminished productivity or waste

Manufacturers can mitigate risk by reducing the scope of a potential product recall with track and trace systems. With an automated track and trace system, manufacturers are able to recall the product in a timely manner by easily identifying what product was impacted and at what point in the process with a click of a mouse.

Paper documentation and data entry is minimized due to the entire process being integrated with their existing systems. All manufacturing and production data can be located in a centralized system. Integration with existing controls systems allows manufacturers to validate that the necessary information was entered before moving the product through the supply chain.

Project Goals

In order to develop and implement a pallet tracking system to allow deep visibility overall, as well as in each supply chain step, QSI was brought in to implement an iGPS pallet tracking system for Kraft. Kraft required that data be collected throughout the entire process, including packaging and distribution.

QSI needed to be able to engineer a system that works with the existing facility and space requirements/constraints, while being able to process and hold the complex tracking, process and packaging information and data in one memory block. Kraft needed the data to be collected into a system for long term storage with easy access to the information.

Challenges

Quantum Solutions faced a challenge with the facility’s close quarters in the packaging area, making it difficult for the system to determine which RFID tag was associated with which specific pallet. This limitation required QSI to design and engineer a process for storing pallets that allowed for each pallet to be easily correlated with a RFID tag.

Kraft also wanted data to be collected from the raw materials resources all the way through to packaging. Therefore, a lot of complex information needed to be stored on one memory block with the pallet RFID.

Complete supply chain information was required to be collected and integrated into the Kraft inventory database for long-term reference and easy accessibility.

Solution

Quantum Solutions developed a system which worked with the existing capacity of the facility. QSI engineers developed and integrated several communication protocols and hardware devices which collected the necessary information for tracking each pallet, including RFID, barcode, product type, date and more.

The iGPS track and trace system implemented and commissioned by Kraft through QSI automatically tracks, labels, and loads data into their inventory database. This process of data logging allowed for improved production scheduling, customer shipping and delivery accuracy and traceability. Product or deliveries that did not meet the established quality standards are easily traced back to their source, allowing Kraft to adjust processes to increase quality and quality control.

The Results

Upon the complete implementation of the iGPS track and trace system by Quantum Solutions, the Kraft Heinz Company experienced improved accuracy and reduced costs in a variety of areas. Kraft is now able to identify and track over 99.8% of the pallets without any operator involvement. By reducing the volume of lost pallets, Kraft experienced significant material savings and reduced waste.

Kraft was also able to reduce labor costs due to minimized user input time for the data entry process. Additionally, in the event of a necessary recall, overhead, labor and time costs were greatly reduced due to the easily accessible historical pallet information.

Client Testimonial

“Quantum Solutions has been a key integrator of our AutoPRN system here in the Garland facility. Their original installation was seamless with little to no impact to production dating back to 2009. The design is robust and reliable with almost no issue since the original installation. The HMI designs are very intuitive and operator friendly as well.”
Alejandro Jaurrieta
Engineering Project Manager
The Kraft Heinz Company

To learn more about the track and trace services and solutions provided to Kraft Heinz and how Quantum Solutions, Inc. can design a system for your facility that will increase productivity and efficiency, check out our Services page or contact us using the form below.

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