Measure:
Companion Line OEE ImprovementAs part of the Measure Phase of DMAIC the project team used some of the following tools to look at the Companion Line it's current state.
- Data Collection (hour by hour board)
- Fishbone Diagram / Ishakawa Diagram
- OEE (historical data based on factory process monitoring system)
Data collection (hour by hour board): As part of the project, the project team decided to introduce an hour-by-hour board to the line to capture any new or any on-going issues during the 8 hour shift, as part of the introduction of this board the project team carried out a series of workshops with Line Operators and Maintenance Craft members to ensure optimum engagement with the improvement process.
Example of shift hour-by-hour board:
- Shift (1st or 2nd)
- Hourly Target (@ 70 % OEE 1260 units)
- Actual # Produced
- Delta from hourly target
- Delta from shift target hour to date
- OEE by hour
- OEE shift to date
- Line issues during the hour
Twice per shift on the line meetings with leadership took place to determine the status and progress of issues assigned to project team members on the problem and countermeasure template.
Fishbone diagram / Ishakawa Diagram: during the project, frequently occurring issues that arose from the hour-by-hour board and then transferred to the problem and countermeasure board were investigated as part of a sub project to the overall project by members of the project team. One method that we used was the Fishbone diagram, to tease out a problem by engaging the subject matter experts from the various processes across the site, please see below one such example for an issue which continued to cause frequent short stops on the line, Set Paper Banding:
To the left an on line RCA board can be seen, this board is portable on wheels allowing us to move it from area to area for stand up meetings and also to troubleshoot machine downtime issues. As can be seen we investigated the Paper Banding issues under the topics of Man, Material, Machine, Method, Mother Nature and Measurement.
Opposite is a picture of the paper band station on the Companion assembly machine. The Paper Banding is applied to fully assembled sets at the end of the process to keep the set neat and tidy for the next stsge of the process, Flowrapping. The process is a 2 station process where by paper is pulled under the set at the first station, then wrapped and pressed around the set at the second station.
OEE histicorical data analysis: on site we have an in process monitoring system (Pragma) which feeds into a computer database giving Engineers and Team Managers an overview of how the line is performing on an ongoing basis. Information such as machine alarm frequency and machine stops are are graphically shown. However the route cause behind the machine stops may not always be apparent from the Pragma data give, that is why we decided to go down the route of an hour-by-hour board as a means of data collection to compare Pragma data versus what actually happens on the line.
