Solutions for Sustainability

Transportation Waste: The Job location tracking solution can be used to track the movement of pieces across a shop floor; the unnecessary movement of material and equipment can then be reduced. This is especially beneficial when the transport mode uses energy (e.g., a forklift or van).

Inventory: Excessive inventory that takes up valuable space and resources and ties up capital could be reduced by using the Job tracking solution to calculate the Work in Progress (WIP). This allows accurate calculation of the capacity needed to store WIP and accurate buffer sizing. Additionally, the Inventory monitoring solution will allow the monitoring of the amount of inventory present within a given time frame and the calculation of how long the pieces stay within storage, on average, over a given time frame. This enables the optimisation of inventory and planning on when to order new pieces, depending on the inflows and outflows of inventory to match demand. Reducing inventory can reduce the need for storage facilities, which take up energy to maintain and materials/resources to set up. Reducing the time that inventory is stored on shelves is also vital when materials (such as chemicals and food) have a shelf life. Knowledge of your inventory from Job tracking or Inventory monitoring can also show you information about your material use and help indicate when they may be growing even if production output is still the same. The inventory management solution is in beta testing, email us if you are a member and would like to try it.

Overproduction and Overprocessing: Quality inspection and Scrap monitoring solutions can be used to record and view the percentage of defects expected from different processes. This helps avoid over-ordering for part buffers and helps estimate how many extra products you will need to make to cope with defects. When a solution such as Scrap monitoring is applied to multiple machines or process lines, it could indicate poor set-up conditions or machine defects, leading to wasted time or material. Job tracking can indicate the location of products, avoiding lost products or orders which then need to be remade using new resources.

Product defects: Temperature monitoring can be used in temperature-sensitive processes to detect when the process exceeds the allowed limits, to help reduce defects or scrapped products, and indicate when maintenance to the machine or process might be required. Additionally, the Quality inspection and Scrap monitoring solutions allow the automatic identification of defective products as well as the number of defects. This can be used to identify trends and patterns of defects in set machines or operations.

Energy usage: Power monitoring does not directly impact waste reduction but can be used to determine where energy is being used and highlight how it can be reduced. This could be especially useful for identifying idle machines drawing excessive power, or help inform when it is time to upgrade existing machinery.