Case Study - Street Lamp Producer

LET US GUIDE YOU TOWARDS OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE

A Case Study in how we helped a street lamp manufacturer increase their productivity, throughput and quality of their product. Some might say a good investment, we call it the first steps towards operational excellence.

Case Study

EWAB ENGINEERING has been around since 1970. It saw the light of day in a garage in a small town in Sweden and is today an international company with offices and employees in 11 countries around the world. Over the years we have created and developed our own workpiece flow system solutions. Today they can be found across the globe on hundreds of factory floors, making sure our customers have the best conditions available for an Overall Equipment Efficiency above 90 %. And to you who are not yet a customer of ours, remember, the highest OEE figure is the one you haven´t yet reached.

CASE EUROPEAN STREET LAMP PRODUCER 2 Variants

Operating 8 hours / 2 Shifts Takt Time 45 seconds 200K Lamps / Year

Picture from our workshop while we built and tested the system.

A

NEW MARKET

BUT THE SAME GOAL

Let´s be honest. The fundamentals of business have always been and always will stay the same. All companies and their owners throughout the whole supply chain, from producer to retail, have the same goal. Sometimes the goal might be clouded by misconceived opinions about what a company’s goal really is. But it´s not production. Not costs. Nor strategies. Those are means, important ones. But the real goal for our customers is making money. Our main purpose is making sure our customers reach that goal! For this specific project, our customer was in a different industry than what our solutions usually are being used for. Through power of simplicity, we applied our expertise of workpiece flow logistics to this other industry. It was still a question of logistics for manufacturing operations and giving the customer the best conditions for their manufacturing production. In the end, we increased their output by improving throughput of product and quality of the build by 40 %. Today they are making more product faster than before and are now able to accept larger batches to keep pace with market demand. In other words, they are making more money in the same amount of time then before.

The customer will remain anonymous throughout this case study. We value the privacy and integrity of all our customers and their products.

EWAB ENGINEERING

WORKPIECE FLOW SOLUTIONS

A GREAT INSTALLATION FOR US A GIANT LEAP IN PRODUCTION FOR THE CUSTOMER For this specific order the customer choose a solution with our own EWAB Controls. It´s designed with the customers needs and future production evolution in mind. However the demand in production environment may change over time, our system is easy to configure and can be adapted to almost all production environments. It was the perfect solution for our customers needs and brought them the workpiece flow their production required. The additional benefits was not only that of raised throughput, accuracy and quality. With our own EWAB Controls it is always easy to adapt and change according to demand. Reconfigurations are easily managed. It requires no programming and no third party supplier. We install, you produce. This is the backbone of your production line.

Line layout

3D View of area showing optional operator frame supports fitted

Our customer for this project was a street lamp manufacturer that had come up with a new innovative and intelligent street lamp, that focused on low power consumption. When we reached out they were in desperate need of a huge increase in their production output. They couldn’t keep up with their customers demand and had to turn down orders that specified big quantities. They wanted ingenuity and simplicity that would help them raise their throughput and keep up with an ever-growing demand. We used our expertise and experience from 50 years and provided them with a workpiece flow solution covering all their needs. For us it was a new market and a new product but our solutions can be adapted and tailored for any workpiece flow manufacturing operation. In the end we delivered a step towards Operational Excellence. THE EWAB FLOW

An EWAB workpiece flow solution based on our expertise, exceeding their expectations.

WHAT THEY NEEDED

An EWAB Solution is the first step towards operational excellence. A smart and intelligent workpiece carrier solution for your manufacturing production. With it´s impressive scalability it can easily be adapted to future requirements and customer needs.

A solution with EWAB Controls was the choice for our customer for this project. They realised the value of the possibility to adapt and change according to changes in production environment. By using EWAB Controls you can start with a simple loop and grow to meet the capacity the market demands.

EWAB CONTROLS

NO PROGRAMMING

JUST PLUG AND PLAY

02

01

03

Solution Rather than one person carrying out the complete build on a bench, the build was split into operations and each operator assigned a task to carry out each time. By doing the same operations repeatably the speed and quality was improved.

Result After installation of our EWAB workpiece flow solution the customer has verified a 40 % raise in production. Today they are making more product than ever before and can now accept larger shipments and make more money.

Challenge Replace old production system and increase output by improving the throughput of product and improve the quality of the build which would reduce the number of rejects.

MAIN SYSTEM

With improved logistics for the load station it became more efficient for the worker. After the operator loads the assembly parts to the workpiece carrier, it will feed the first robot station. For manual operations we fitted the stations with a frame system for lightning and tools that where to be used in build process. Next comes an automated process that when completed will go on to three further operator stations. The final station, station eight, is a test station. Between station seven and eight, parts will not be stored in the buffer area as this will affect the light curtain of the test cell. We fitted screw escape systems

Installation on site

Our workshop before installation

on all manual and robotic operations, seven in total. These units assist in the removal of any additional

screws that may fall onto the line during the build process. They are automatically removed before they can cause any damage to the system.

STATEMENTS

FOR US, EVERY CUSTOMER AND THEIR NEEDS ARE UNIQUE.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “COPY - PASTE”. WE ALWAYS WORK CLOSELY WITH OUR CLIENTS TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE A TOTAL UNDERSTANDING AND PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP BUILT ON TRUST.

“ After evaluating many options we decided to partner with EWAB who delivered on their promises at each and every stage of the design, development, testing and installation of the assembly line. ”

MR. CLARK

PROCESS DIRECTOR

“ The project was an exciting opportunity to further develop and impact in a new sector for EWAB. A proposal using EWAB Controls provided the customer with a totally flexible carrier solution for the assembly process. Our modular design also allows customer reconfiguration and easy extension.“

GRAHAM LEE BUSINESS ENGINEER

REMEMBER, THE HIGHEST OEE FIGURE IS THE

ONE YOU HAVEN´T YET REACHED

www.ewab.com