PROBLEM:
An industrial plant was scrapping up to 100 subassemblies per day. Frequent calls were coming into the maintenance department for repairs to a critical hydraulic press. The damaged subassemblies had to be replaced with new subassemblies at a significant rebuild cost to the customer. ATS was brought in to fix the problem.
THE ATS SOLUTION:
ATS studied the process looking for the root of the problem. The result -- the press tooling was causing the failures. Both the press and product subassemblies were being damaged due to process failures. During the process cycle, misaligned tools were breaking the tooling and damaging the subassemblies. This caused the entire subassembly to be scrapped. ATS recommended changing the design of press tooling to allow for better alignment. Working together, ATS and customer engineers made prototypes, evaluated results and implemented the updated process.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
After tooling was finalized and installed, maintenance calls were virtually eliminated along with subassembly scrap. The product cost of the subassemblies range from $50 to $125 each, so with a conservative weekly loss estimate of 400 units, the cost to the customer was significant. The maintenance team presented the results to the plant manager with the following assumptions:
1. Daily loss - 80 units per day
2. Product cost of $55
3. Based on only 80 units per day at $55 per unit cost -- annual savings of $1,056,000*
*Based on 48-week year.