CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
23 March 2011
Events News
Krontime Launches a New Software Solution "Lean Factory" at the Next Industries 2011 Show in Lyon (5 – 8 April)
Industrie Lyon 2011 (5 to 8 April 2011 in Lyon Eurexpo) is a multi-industry show bringing together all industrial suppliers. Its positioning attracts manufacturers from various sectors and industries, all looking for innovative solutions and products. Located in Rhone-Alps, in the heart of the first French industrial area, Industrie Lyon is a meeting place for all innovating industries.
KRONTIME, editor of innovative software solutions dedicated to industrialization engineers will be present in Industrie Lyon. It offers modular, adaptable software, simple to use, focused on a single database. The company has several references in France in the production sector and relies on a network of partners to implement its solutions on the European market.
The context
The relocation of production to low cost countries appears less and less as a solution for European industries: management of changes, difficulty of controlling delivering times without forgetting the lack of confidentiality are the mains concerns. It is time to move towards new solutions: by reorganizing their production systems, by reducing waste and stocks, by adapting as quickly as possible in response to customer orders, many companies have discovered real veins of productivity in their factories and workshops.
Implement a flexible and efficient production
Manufacturing engineering teams are the first to be concerned; they must control the efficiency process in the enterprise, standardize more flexible production units, reduce activities without added value, respond to a changing demand with a very variable manufacturing batch, improve the quality and deadlines with more custom products.
In this area, few tools exist and industrialization specialists often use house software or solutions based on Excel. This disparate information does not rely on a common database; business history is not preserved and is therefore non-reusable.
On the contrary, the "Krontime lean factory" solution is based around a unique "industrialization" knowledge base which permits to find the necessary information for each engineer and facilitates communication. They design production facilities on screen, simulate to make the right decisions and achieve productivity gains.
The software solution "krontime lean factory"
Presented at Industrie Lyon 2011, this software solution integrates several engineering disciplines (process analysis, calculation of the times, balancing, resource management) which constitute a very rich knowledge database of manufacturing processes. Thus a dashboard provides Lean indicators, for example the total time of production, productivity, value added, the area, the movement of materials, scrap...
Krontime Lean Factory consists of seven products organized around a single knowledge base.
* This industrialization knowledge base is the company's expertise. The objective is to gather the information (ergonomic analysis, analysis assembly lines, stations, actions underway SMED...) in a same database accessible to all. That is to say that those responsible for quality, the times calculation, safety, maintenance now have updated and consistent information.
* The module Operations and Routing helps to define lists of operations and processes, to associate the resources needed for each operation, measurement of working time and facilitates the establishment of standards of operation and time. It is thus easy to distinguish between operations in added value and no-value added (preparation machine, wait time…)
* Module Resource Balancing determines the resources necessary for a particular order. This module handles constraints in resources and reduces significantly the time spent launching a production line. It defines and verifies the assembly sequences, automatically calculates staff, their tasks, solves the problems of ergonomics, measures performance.
* Module Work Team Documents is sharing all the information related to production whether it controls quality management, security at work, maintenance in multimedia formats such as text, graphics, audios, photos, videos. This solution also provides dynamic instructions to the workstation to assist production lines through a mix of products. It reduces errors and offers a tool of annotations and feedback information.
* The module Process Planning and Simulation (flows of manufacturing, global analysis, critical paths...) permits modelling the flows, intermediate stocks, detect bottlenecks on the manufacturing lines and calculate the time of production. This module anticipates the impact of some changes in the flow of production before they occur in the workshop.
* The module Improvement Planning and Management. Industrialization engineers having identified areas for improvement will have tools to document, verify the implications, calculate a return on investment... Management people will then have a view on each initiative or global view at the level of the production units.
* With the module Traceability Management and Statistics, a large number of indicators can be defined in addition to the Overall Equipment Effectiveness ratio (OEE) which visualizes the operation of production lines and detects the reasons for variations in production.
* The Manufacturing Performance Indicators module provides Lean indicators, for example the total time of production, productivity, value added, area, scrap, lead-time when delivery problems, the value of stocks... It visualizes the results of production and compares them with the objectives.
A rapid return on investment
The approach often comes in steps. The fact of relying on a very pragmatic approach gives a very short implementation time, around 1 to 2 weeks and a rapid return on investment (ROI)
Earnings can be several kinds:
- Rapid reconfiguration of lines
- Easy management of the production mix
- Savings of time of 50 to 60% on series changes
"We have customers who had as an objective to create a knowledge base and to generate technical documentation". In that case, we met ROI of 8 to 10, or even 12 months.
"Others went further with the establishment of a knowledge base and the use of indicators of efficiency with a return on investment on 6 to 8 months," explains Jordi Portella, co-founder of Krontime. "Previously, these companies had to wait a week to get the right information and take measures to react." "At this rate, the ROI is very fast."
-Company name : KRONTIME
-Product: Krontime Lean Factory
-Booth at Industrie Lyon : 6F 78 bis
-Contacts: Jordi portella j.portella@krontime.com
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