Challenges

“Although we have to handle high-mix production, the conventional system required changeover time, which lowered the overall production efficiency. Therefore, we would like to increase the productivity by eliminating the changeover as much as possible.”

⚡Points of the problem faced by the customer⚡

[1] The customer wanted to eliminate the changeover time (20 minutes) per part type on the infeed unit (parts feeder).

[2] They also wanted to eliminate small adjustments when changing parts on the parts feeder.

[3] Although the parts feeder was manufactured by an third party vendor, the customer wanted to use a peripheral system supplied from a single manufacturer, from the maintenance stand point.

Solutions

💡What we can do for the customer💡

- Proposing a infeed unit that can handle multiple types of workpieces without changeover!

Achieving a 5% increase of the equipment operating rate and saving more operation time by using a stocker not requiring changeover !

Our proposals to solve the customer’s problems are as follows.

Proposals

- The customer’s system was operated 21 hours per day with 3 shifts for 3 times of changeover per day, resulting in a total of 60 minutes of machine down time.

By eliminating the 60 minute changeover time and keeping the system running, the system operating rate can be improved by 5%.

In addition, by allocating the man-hours for changeover to other processes, operators can have their time more and they can put their effort on other work.

‐ When listening to the customer’s issue, we found that the greatest point is how to eliminate the “changeover time” that hinders the productivity.

Therefore, we proposed to develop a system consisting of an muratec standard  stocker and a specially designed pallet jig at a reasonable price to solve the issue.

Sales and SE departments of Muratec always offer the best proposal for individual customers after grasping their issues at the inquiry stage.

Effects after introduction

✨Higher Productivity

- Productivity has been greatly improved by adopting high-mix production without changeover.

- The on-site operational efficiency has also been much improved by eliminating the time for parts changeover.

- Compared to the conventional parts feeder system, the acceptable stock quantity has increased, allowing for automatic operation for more than 4 hours, that leads to further productivity improvement.