Combination OEE Toolkit and improvement teams ensure healthy Kingspan Unidek
Kingspan Unidek in Gemert produces EPS products for construction and the industrial sector. EPS is also known as Styrofaom polystyrene and the options with these little balls are endless. “The previous director once even made a boat out of Unidek polystyrene. Which says something about the strength of the material!” says Matthijn Künz, Manager of Process Development at Kingspan Unidek. The originally family run business has been using OEE Toolkit since 2007.
More effective working with OEE
Matthijn: “Last year was pretty tough for us. The recession had a direct influence on the construction sector and, given that construction is our main market, we took a direct hit. Our only aim last year was to stay afloat with all employees. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to a number of our staff. Fortunately Q1 of this year was much better than last year’s. We can now concentrate on working more effectively and more efficiently, and on addressing loses. It is really only now that we are utilizing all the features offered by OEE Toolkit.”
Reducing downtime loses
Kingspan Unidek works with shop floor driven improvement teams. The teams themselves know best where improvements are real. “You can already see the results”, says Matthijn. “In our ‘Smulders’ production line, the emphasis is on limiting downtime. Imagine that each EPS block has to be annealed into various pieces. Constantly changing the size of the annealing threads takes up a great deal of time, and it is not always possible to do this neatly as some projects are given priority. Despite the ‘job in hand’ it is vital to try to predict and improve this as much as possible. The results from OEE Toolkit and particularly from RemoteCollect presented at the production line have a clear effect. Even without direct changes, visibility has already ensures increased production. With the improvement teams, this can only increase further.”
More aware
“The operators are much more aware of losses since we have been using OEE Toolkit. And more importantly still is the fact that operators have become more aware of the hidden loses! They know that their contribution has a direct effect on production and everyone can see this in the number of blocks that are annealed per shift. In addition to a cost-price decrease, which is an advantage to our clients, there has also been a decrease in the number of overtime hours and that is good for operatorsand their families,” Matthijn concludes. “We will continue to press on together with these improvements and will try to minimize further losses resulting from downtime. Aiming at even higher levels of machine efficiency.” |
