CASE STUDY #2 :
Manufacturing Process Control

Real life solutions that have been designed and provided by MRE Consulting Group and allied firms.

A large supplier of dyed cloth materials contacted us about modernizing their entire dying operation.  Semi-automated machines were scattered throughout a sprawling plant, each with a machine controller that had to be operated by sending a person out to the machine in question to push the right buttons.  The management office lacked proper and timely information concerning quality control and scheduling of tasks. They were falling behind, and needed help.

The manufacturer of the machine controls offered a partial solution, but it was expensive and didn't address all their needs.  Also, the manufacturer was not in this country and much of the documentation was in another language!  Middle management was under pressure to increase production and quality, but did not have the means or the information to accomplish this. Several vendors and outside sources had proposed solutions that did not solve enough of the problems to make the company decide to implement any of them.

MRE Consulting Group performed a discovery process, wherein we interviewed all of the personnel that needed to interface with the proposed system, from plant management to floor operators. This was done to get a proper perspective on the flow of work and information that would need to be improved and expanded upon.  Once this information became known and agreed upon by all parties, one of our allied consultants designed the overall hardware configuration necessary to perform these functions, while two others created software that handled the gathering of data from the  machines for statistical analysis and scheduling, along with the ability to remotely control all the machines from the production office.  A support and maintenance structure was also specified to handle the system as time went on.

The company productivity was dramatically increased, allowing them to do much more dying of cloth with the same amount of machines and manpower.  Profitability was also greatly increased due to their ability to now analyze machine parameters in real time and make adjustments before entire batches needed to be re-done.  Finally, upper management received the reports and strategic information they needed to make crucial decisions regarding future plans, acquisition of new plant infra-structure, or additional sales.