Back to basics for plastics processors

PICME engineers will be taking the plastics processing industry back to effective production basics at PMD 05 in Telford, from 12th to 14th April 2005.

PICME engineers will be taking the plastics processing industry back to effective production basics at PMD 05 in Telford, from 12th to 14th April: showing live demonstrations in best practice and in the key area of tooling changeovers; spelling out how these factors affect the commercial performance of a business; and showing many other dos and don'ts for typical manufacturing operations.

PICME's sessions at Telford will also appeal to the interests of both production and commercial practitioners in the industry.

"Best practice manufacturing improvement tools and techniques should make the same kind of sense to jobs in business and production alike", says Simon Danks, Senior Advisor, PICME, and co-ordinator of the PICME stand at PMD.

"We expect the same kind of folk to benefit from what we will be showing and telling at the PMD exhibition in April 05".

A key theme element of the PICME sessions will be the observation that modern manufacturing techniques and technology can obscure the virtues of common sense.

"Manufacturers must always be assessing and clarifying 'what is of value in my operation - and what isn't'", says Danks.

Danks says that PMD 05 will see PICME illustrating and expanding on the principles of the three divisions of work.

The first is "value added" - ie any process step that changes the nature, shape or characteristic of the product or service in line with customer's requirements.

"We will be sure to help our clients maximise this - and anything the customer is willing to pay for", says Danks.

Secondly, "non-value-added" comprises any work carried out which is necessary - such as tool changing, product inspection, maintenance, part movement - but which does not increase product value.

"In client work PICME helps to reduce this element as far as possible", says Danks.

Thirdly, "waste" covers meaningless activity in overproduction, inventory, idle time, operator motion, bad quality and in many other factors.

"Waste is there to be eliminated in our activities", notes Danks.

"We encourage our clients - and our PMD audience - to wage war on it".

Waste, in truth, can be found in all work processes, and the challenge for most manufacturers, says Danks, is to raise the ratio of value added operations to non value added and waste.

The centrepiece of the PICME presence at PMD will be a live demonstration of how to achieve better tooling changeovers.

A small piece of equipment making products and incorporating hot foil stamping will be used by Danks and PICME colleagues to practically illustrate the principles of this element of effective working practice and this will then be used to show the consequent business benefits.

"Reducing the setup time as a part of overall changeover will be a key lesson from our PMD show", says Danks.

"By standardising a method, you give yourself more opportunities for more frequent setups, smaller production runs, shorter lead times and therefore a much increased competitive advantage".

Tool changeover issues have been at the centre of PICME"s work to date.

Improving tool changes was the main focus of work with PICME's very first client - East Anglian based thermoformer, Anson Packaging.

Shortly after its move into a new factory, analysis from the Anson line showed that product changeovers were the most significant cause of downtime and accounted for a considerable proportion of total plant capacity.

The key objective for the PICME Anson workshop was therefore set at reducing the time for these changeovers by 50%.

Problem solving an issue of tool alignment and redesigning the tool maintenance process eliminated the delays and difficulty involved.

A final changeover trial at Anson resulted in a time that was only 15% of the original average changeover time achieved on this production line.

This far exceeded the team's objective of reducing the changeover time by 50%.

A significantly reduced changeover time enabled the company to take on a large volume new customer with additional manufacturing capacity realised by the improvements made.

The PICME masterclass process gave all team members improvement tools and techniques that could be used throughout the factory, enabled them to improve the layout of a newly installed line and also resulted in a reorganisation of production line responsibilities that has produced a more efficient process.

A packaging line at the Horsham site of pharmaceutical major Novartis also gave PICME the opportunity to help the team address their changeover issues.

By following the PICME masterclass process the team was able to identify the many causes of lost time in changeovers and put solutions in place to eliminate or minimise these.

Running trials throughout the workshop the Novartis team progressively achieved a massive 60% plus reduction in product changeovers with further consequential benefits for lot and batch changes.

Hungry for more improvement the team also started to tackle some other cross-functional issues which contributed to their tablet feed problems.

The data-based approach quickly won the support of the other departments to tackle the issues and big inroads have been made.

The Novartis team achieved a lasting reduction in product changeover times of approximately 60%.

In so doing it set a new production record which far exceeds the target.

The team remains focused on increasing output and has established an ongoing process for resolving some of the cross-functional issues that lead to lower packing rates and downtime.

PICME's Steve Davies, responsible for PICME sales in the plastics sector says: "Client stories such as these have given us the confidence and the mandate to organise something for the industry at large at PMD 05 - with a big emphasis on tooling changeover".

"We shall shortly be organising a programme of invites to the industry to come and see us at PMD 05 and we will be enabling them to take away all the improvement tips that their business can absorb".

"There are lessons for all manufacturers to be had here and I hope that all in plastics production come to see it".

Back to top