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| | Fortune 500 Faucet Manufacturer Increases Productivity While Eliminating Machine Downtime to Keep Profits From Going Down the Drain |
| | Customer: | | Moen Incorporated |
| | Country: | | United States |
| | Industry: | | Household and Personal Care |
| | Services: | | None |
| | Products: | | Networks & Communications, Software |
| Moen relies on FactoryTalk production and performance software from Rockwell Automation to help boost Overall Equipment Efficiency
Solutions
- FactoryTalk Metrics – essential for
performance improvement, scheduling,
compliance and data acquisition
- FactoryTalk Transaction Manager –
retrieves real time information
from the control system
- DeviceNet Communications –
DeviceNet allows Moen to collect
operating and diagnostic data at the
machine device level
Results
- Helped increase productivity by 20 percent
in less than one year
- Helped increase overall equipment efficiency
(OEE) by more than 20 percent
- Solution provides critical cycle time data
along with the visibility needed to schedule
preventative maintenance and help
minimize downtime
| 
Moen, a Fortune 500 manufacturer of kitchen and bathroom faucets, turned to Rockwell Automation to implement a manufacturing execution system (MES) to help it increase product throughput and productivity and improve inventory control. |
Background
Overall equipment efficiency (OEE) is a key statistic in any manufacturing facility, so it can be particularly problematic when one of your most common machines is only running at 60 percent to 70 percent of its potential. Such was the case when Moen, a Fortune 500 manufacturer of kitchen and bathroom faucets, approached Rockwell Automation to help improve equipment efficiency, increase throughput and reduce downtime.
Screw machines – which are essentially a form of highly automated lathe – are essential in faucet manufacturing. In a screw machine, a set of mechanical feed fingers pulls a long rod of copper, brass or other raw material into the machine, which automatically forms the metal into the appropriate shape for the faucet piece and advances the rod to make the next part. A bar loader moves from machine to machine that provides each station with plenty of raw stock. Many modern screw machines track the number of faucet pieces produced from each rod, allowing manufacturers to accurately predict supply needs and help prevent critical work stoppages.
George Berki, electrician, (left) and Steve Zurcher, facility manager, stand in front of one of Moen’s screw machines, which play a vital role in the company’s faucet manufacturing process. The MES solution from Rockwell Automation provides an accurate count on the number of parts each screw machine operator produces each day, allowing the company to identify potential problems before they occur and improve overall efficiency.
Challenge
In general, older screw machines do not have the ability to accurately count the number of parts produced. Rather than count individual parts, they weigh large quantities on bulk scales and then estimate based on the weight of an individual piece. These rough estimates provide some guidance on raw material use, but if a bar loader is unable to manually detect a rod shortage, the machine can shut down entirely, sacrificing productivity. Rod shortages and feeding errors in screw machines can also lead to increased product flaws, forcing many manufacturers to submit to labor-intensive quality checks – particularly problematic when more than 100 different products are in production at any given time.
From a production standpoint, Moen sought a solution that would provide an accurate count of the number of parts each screw machine operator produced in a given day, allowing it to identify potential problems before they occurred and improve overall efficiency. In addition, with the onslaught of overseas competition growing, the faucet manufacturer needed to verify rate versus cycle-time, confirming each machine was running at maximum availability.
“With increased competitive pressures, the ability to keep close tabs on our productivity and keep it as high as possible was becoming increasingly critical,” said Steve Zurcher, lead production coach, Moen. “This requires reliable access to operation data, including rate versus cycle time, part counts and overall operating parameters of our machines.”
Solutions
Despite the fact that screw machines are common in a variety of industries – from automotive manufacturers to building suppliers – Moen found few solutions that could address its problem of excessive machine crashes during assembly. Moen turned to Rockwell Automation to implement a manufacturing execution system (MES) based on a long history of partnering with the company on automation solutions, and their “can-do attitude.”
This MES system helps Moen measure and control critical production processes while also helping increase traceability, productivity and quality. In addition, Moen can use the MES system for other functions, including inventory management, equipment and labor tracking, and quality and resolution monitoring.
Moen set its sights on managing its facility with a comprehensive plant-wide reporting solution available through the FactoryTalk® integrated production and performance software suite. By bringing a simple view into plant operations, without adding additional manpower, the service-oriented architecture within FactoryTalk provides Moen with a tailored mix of software integration tools and manufacturing software applications for improved access to plant-floor information.
At the manufacturer’s facility, data coming from a multitude of different operations across the plant floor is now fed into one software application – FactoryTalk® Metrics. With FactoryTalk Metrics, engineers can use data to help improve processes and generate reports on production development. This allows them to more easily adjust their manufacturing operations to meet ongoing product demands. Whereas operators previously logged delays manually – and sometimes inaccurately – the FactoryTalk Metrics component of the MES now automatically logs delays in a fraction of a second. The software application also serves as a basis for understanding the real causes of inefficiency, waste, lost capacity and equipment status.
Moen also uses FactoryTalk® Transaction Manager software to more effectively integrate the critical data in its shop-floor control systems with enterprise IT and other manufacturing applications. Through FactoryTalk Transaction Manager, the company is able to establish a two-way exchange of data between applications, a database and the existing control system for downloading recipes, production schedules or managing data exchanges. This software solution provides connectivity, location transparency and redundancy.
Moen is also able to take advantage of a user-friendly interface that allows communication using the Rockwell Software® RSLinx® communications interface software. With RSLinx, the company’s control platform provides the data to support multiple software applications simultaneously, including FactoryTalk Metrics and FactoryTalk Transaction Manager.
Moen extends its data collection capabilities to the device level with a DeviceNet communications network. Moen can collect operating parameters, such as power, current amperage, line output, fault codes and bus voltage, or pull up a trend analysis for a specific component to see how well it is doing. Engineers use a simple RSNetWorxTM software interface to define and configure device management services for DeviceNet.
“We have used Rockwell Automation products for more than eight years, so we knew their expertise and due diligence would provide us with a unique solution to our dilemma,” Zurcher said. “Their understanding of our business needs helped address not only the issues we originally hired them for, but also helped open our eyes to the plethora of possibilities that an integrated plant floor architecture can provide manufacturers in our industry.”
Results
The Rockwell Automation solution helped Moen boost productivity by 10 percent in less than one year. Moen was able to increase OEE on most machines by nearly 30 percent as a result of its ability to accurately determine the number of pieces each machine produced. The machine part count data also allows management to schedule preventative maintenance and minimize downtime.
The automation solution from Rockwell Automation also provided Moen with an added benefit. Unlike other factories, the faucet manufacturer is now able to tell how long its equipment is running, how many parts each line is producing, and verify overall cycle-time versus rate without manual counting on scales. In addition, Zurcher and his team can also tell when a machine breakdown is coming due to voltage and cycle time increases.
“The main reason we automated our production with Rockwell Automation was to provide a better handle on our productivity,” said Zurcher. “What we didn’t expect was a tamper-proof way to count parts and monitor machine operations with the ability to compare cycle-time to rate. The benefits of the Rockwell Automation solution have helped us remain competitive in an increasingly crowded industry.”
The results mentioned above are specific to Moen’s use of Rockwell Automation products and services in conjunction with other products. Specific results may vary for other customers.
FactoryTalk, Rockwell Software, RSLinx and RSNetWorx are trademarks of Rockwell Automation Inc.
Trademarks not belonging to Rockwell Automation are property of their respective companies.
Publication number: HPCVP-AP001A-EN-P
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