“AEROPLANES MAKE MONEY WHEN THEY ARE FLYING, NOT WHEN THEY ARE PARKED AT THE AIRPORT.”

The statement above might seem a bit strange at first, but the purpose is to deal with the topic of system exploitation, in other words, how much we can get out of a system.

The question we want to answer is:

ARE WE REALLY GETTING THE MOST OUT OF OUR MACHINE TOOL?

As many of us are experiencing directly, many things have changed in the production world compared to the past; one of these things is the production lots which, as per the market request, are becoming smaller and smaller.

With this request for increasingly smaller production lots and, in parallel, customers asking for ever faster delivery times, production companies have been retooling their machinery more and more frequently.

When this request for frequent production changes becomes increasingly intense, the system within the companies is placed under a great deal of stress and falls apart in the end, due to the following reasons:

• TOO FEW SET UP PERSONNEL AVAILABLE
• LONG RETOOLING TIMES
• COMPLEX FINE-TUNING OPERATIONS
• MANY OPERATIONS REQUIRED FOR THE CHANGE
• COMPLICATED PROCEDURES
• TOOL CHANGE TIMES TOO DEPENDENT ON PERSONNEL SKILLS

For the aforementioned problems, the tempting traditional solution is to produce more pieces than what the market or customer is asking for, taking the risk of putting them in stock hoping that another order will be placed.

EXPANDING THE FINISHED PRODUCT WAREHOUSE IN ORDER TO QUICKLY MEET

THE CUSTOMERS’ REQUEST IS A MISTAKE…

When you are faced with this type of request and try to react, you ask your team to meet the market needs or, more conveniently, you criticise the market by saying that everyone’s going crazy and things are not what they used to be, customers are getting worse year after year and you are always in the right.

I have seen many companies, leaders in their sector that, by thinking that all their customers had gone crazy and insisting on producing as it had always been done in the past because it had always worked, manages to barely survive or, even worse, were forced to close down.

Once you understand that customers have changed their attitude and you start focusing on meeting their needs, that’s the precise moment when, little by little, solutions start to pop into your head, solutions that, just a short time before, you had absolutely no clue about.

As long as you insist that other people are wrong and you alone are right, your mind automatically closes and you literally cannot see any solutions.

In fact, you do something that is even worse: you go looking for confirmations because, let’s be honest, we are always looking for examples or situations that allow us to say: SEE.. I WAS RIGHT!

How much energy is wasted and how many opportunities are missed in the name of “SEE… I WAS RIGHT!”.

Sometimes, in order to be right about something, we alter reality, we tell ourselves stories which are not entirely true and then, by telling them over and over again, we even start believing that they are true!

So, going back to our main topic, which was “HOW TO CHANGE PRODUCTION IN 5 MINUTES”, we want to focus on how to really do it and not on finding excuses aimed at demonstrating that CHANGING PRODUCTION IN 5 MINUTES is not possible, just to have the satisfaction of being able to say: “SEE.. I WAS RIGHT!”

SO, IF YOU THINK IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO CHANGE PRODUCTION IN 5 MINUTES,YOU CAN STOP READING THIS RIGHT NOW…

 

Let me tell you a story… One of my customers, who recently bought his first MULTICENTER and, after just 11 months, a second MULTICENTER, called me to discuss the purchase of a third machine. Nothing wrong so far.

What more could I ask for?

A customer satisfied with the first two machines supplied, and that is now able to quickly serve its customers, wanted a third machine in order to increase turnover and continue along this path.

The customer, however, had thought of a third machine that would be even more flexible, even more aggressive due to the production change.

He explained to me that if he managed to satisfy his customers through quick deliveries of his product, basically standard but with a few customisations during the processing phase, these customers would have paid up to 150% more compared to the price of the product!

This customer’s need gave rise to the project “CHANGING PRODUCTION IN 5 MINUTES”.

Do you want to know the first thought that came into my head? IMPOSSIBLE! How can you change a production machine in just 5 minutes?

As often happens, after going back to the office and letting the information received settle into my head, I discussed the concept within the company, and we began to analyse the challenge in order to be able to meet this need.

Once the challenge was launched to the study team, Management asked the team to come up with a solution that could be applied to the standard MULTICENTER already on the market, so that other customers that already owned this machine could benefit from this innovation.

In other words, a challenge within the challenge.

Having to find a solution, at the same time developing it in a standardised fashion so that it could be applied as a package to be implemented separately, even in the future, to MULTICENTER machines purchased by other customers.

This is the solution we came up with: splitting the research group into two subgroups. Each subgroup had to submit two solutions, for a total of 4 solutions.

This method prevents you getting bogged down in a single solution.

The four projects were then presented, listing for each one the respective advantages and disadvantages.

This was then combined with the estimated tool change time and the cost of the system itself.

The the two projects with the highest scores were then presented to the customer, who confirmed the validity of the first project.

Below please find an image of the final project…

THIS PROJECT ALLOWS THE PIECE CLAMP TO BE CHANGED IN JUST 30 SECONDS!

Below is a summary of the strengths offered by the winning project:

• VERY FLEXIBLE, IT CAN BE ADAPTED TO ALL PIECES TO BE PROCESSED BY SIMPLY REPLACING THE PART CLAMPS.
• SUPER FAST TOOLING: FIXTURE CHANGED IN 30 SECONDS PER STATION.
• FAST TO PRODUCE: INSTEAD OF HAVING MULTIPLE PLACEMENTS ON PALLETS, THIS SYSTEM CONCENTRATES ON ONE PIECE ONLY
• VERY COST-EFFECTIVE: BY MEANS OF THE MASTER FIXTURE, THE COST IS REDUCED TO THE COST OF THE PART CLAMP ONLY
• EASY TO HANDLE DUE TO ITS LIGHTNESS: NO LIFTING TOOL NEEDED DURING THE CHANGE
• NO PARTICULAR WRENCH OR TOOL TO UNSCREW OR SCREW IN.

This piece of equipment was designed to specifically meet a market request that entails small-medium lots of complex pieces requiring fast delivery times.

In addition to the above, you will also gain a competitive advantage by being able to meet in RECORD time the customer’s PERSONALISED requests, the type of requests that manufacturing companies in developing countries are unable to meet.

THIS IS MY EXPLANATION. BUT, OBVIOUSLY, YOU COULD SAY THAT I AM BIASED. SO, CONTACT ME BY E-MAIL AND WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP ABOUT THE CHANGE IN 30 SECONDS THAT I WILL SEND YOU!

Since 2005, in other words for the past 12 years, we have been gradually introducing this new product on the market, opening up a new segment in the world of TRANSFER machines, giving this machine the name MULTICENTER.

Today, we can boast the largest machinery fleet installed in this category, with over 100 centers sold both in Italy and abroad. In addition, the advantage of mass-producing these standard machines, as I mentioned above, has made the following possible:

THE MULTICENTER HAS THE LOWEST COST IN ITS CATEGORY!

SO…

WHAT WOULD CHANGE AT YOUR COMPANY IF YOU INSTALLED A MULTICENTER IN ORDER TO PRODUCE SMALL-MEDIUM QUANTITIES IN RECORD TIME?

…AND WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU KEEP ON USING THE SAME MACHINES YOU HAVE ALWAYS USED IN THE PAST? 

WHAT WOULD BE THE RISKS FOR YOUR COMPANY IF YOU DID NOTHING AND SIMPLY POSTPONED YOUR DECISIONS?

WRITE BELOW YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS AND WATCH THE REAL VIDEO OF THE CHANGE IN 30 SECONDS!

Maurizio Porta
Expert in Flexible Production