Challenges:

• Lack of shop floor visibility.

• No efficient system for root-cause analysis.

• Lack of insight into true inventory levels.

• Reliance on paper-based record keeping.

• Manual production processes and data entry.

Goals:

• Provide real-time visibility and insight into the factory floor.

• Automate KPI data collection, with an emphasis on OEE and process margin control.

• Automate production flows.

• Standardize production procedures to optimize inventory management.

• Provide complete and accurate real-time and historical reports for fact-based decision making.

• Facilitate operator involvement in Kaizen activities.

• Optimize administrative workloads via digitalizing paper-based processes.

• Improve traceability.

• Improve quality management.

Solution:

To get started, Kaizen Tech worked with Amorim to pilot a TrakSYS project at one of their Champagne cork stopper facilities. It quickly became clear to the Amorim team that TrakSYS, with its ability to provide each of their facilities with the unique suite of tools and insights they needed to thrive while simultaneously allowing for uniform operational control and insight, was just the platform they had been looking for. And so it was that, after the initial test site, Amorim and Kaizen Tech set about implementing TrakSYS at the company's 25 global production sites.

With optimization being the theme that underscored Amorim's goals, Kaizen Tech began designing a TrakSYS rollout that would (amongst other things) un-cork production bottlenecks, help improve product quality, and provide operators with real-time inventory levels. To that end, the Production Management module of the platform was implemented to increase the efficiency and speed of production runs. Operators also gained the ability to monitor material consumption in real-time, which had previously not been possible.

On the heels of Amorim's Production solution came TrakSYS' Inventory Management. In addition to further informing the material consumption reports mentioned above, this solution enabled Amorim to dramatically improve its raw material ordering and warehousing processes. With production operating more effectively, scrap and reject had decreased, which, when paired with accurate measures of material consumption, enabled teams to stop over ordering (and stop overpaying for) raw materials. The contextualized, real-time data that these solutions provided enabled Amorim to do cost analysis reporting at the start of the month—a practice that, before TrakSYS, had to be conducted in the middle of a given month once the previous month's data had been collected and reviewed. With this reporting now happening at the start of each month, corrective actions and changes to production schedules could be implemented as necessary throughout the month to ensure financial goals and thresholds were met.

Batch and Recipe Management was implemented to eliminate errors and deviations brought on by manual recipe and production data entry. By integrating with Amorim's ERP system, TrakSYS gained the ability to select recipes automatically. When a customer contract closed, the resulting new order would trigger within TrakSYS, and the platform would automatically select the appropriate recipe. TrakSYS would then cue the recipe for production and guide the equipment through execution, step-by-step, thereby optimizing inventory consumption and creating a standard for each unique recipe and batch process. Automating their batching processes has helped Amorim avoid the potentially costly pitfalls that arise through poorly or improperly executed batch runs and also enabled end-to-end traceability. As the next step in further optimizing their global manufacturing operations, Amorim and Kaizen Tech have already begun working on introducing Algorithmic Production Scheduling (APS) and Statistical Process Control (SPC) to each of the 25 global facilities.