Access and Mestec provide integrated solution for Martin’s Rubber

 

Leading elastomer manufacturer Martin’s Rubber is seeing the benefits of advanced planning and scheduling on the shopfloor after integrating Access ERP and Access Orchestrate Planning and Scheduling software with Mestec Manufacturing Execution Systems. Starting with accurate shop floor data collection (SFDC), these platforms have enabled the company to make better use of production capacity, optimise productivity, improve on-time delivery and maintain control of costs.

ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems play a critical role in modern manufacturing businesses, particularly when it comes to planning materials and labour, while keeping track of costs. These systems are the foundation of a firm’s operations – however, additional capabilities may be needed to handle shop floor operations, as Adam Hooper, Operations Director for Martin’s Rubber explains:

“ERP supports resource planning for the business, but the real benefit has come from integrating Mestec into ERP, which has given us the ability to manage the whole shop floor experience.”

 

Improving capacity

Martin’s Rubber has significantly improved key aspects of its operational performance since adopting Mestec to collect data from the shop floor and issue work instructions back to operators.

Adam said: “As far as our business is concerned, Mestec integrating with Access helps us control costs and has enabled us to improve our performance on several levels. Because we can accurately measure actual values against expected, we can assess where we are against our plan and, if necessary, do something about it.”

 

Martin’s Rubber has integrated Mestec with Access ERP, including Access Orchestrate Advanced Production Planning and Scheduling Software. By gathering accurate, real-time data and automatically feeding this into Access ERP, Martin’s Rubber is making full use of its investment, as Adam explained:

“Access Orchestrate gives us visibility of all the jobs that we have in the system, including the time that those jobs should take and the resources they require in terms of machines and people. It juggles those various constraints and comes up with the most effective manufacturing sequence. Mestec then sends work-to lists to operators’ portable tablets in this priority order at a work-centre level.”

“Operators record their activities as they happen including the time they start and complete operations via simple touches on the tablet screen. A sub-set of this information, including the progress against each job, is fed back into Access ERP. When we re-schedule, which we do several times during the day, Orchestrate takes the next snapshot from the shop floor and updates the plan. The system lets us know where we are and what capacity we have to fit in further work during that day/week/month.”

“The progress against each job is fed back into Access ERP. When we reschedule, which we do several times during the day, Orchestrate takes the next snapshot from the shop floor and updates the plan. The system lets us know where we are and what capacity we have to fit in further work during that day/week/month.“

Collecting accurate data

Martin’s Rubber manufactures hundreds of different parts with variable batch runs and lead times that vary from ‘while you wait’, to over a year for products for the defence sector. The complexity of its operations is one of the reasons why having accurate and robust data collection from the factory floor is so critical to improving manufacturing efficiency.

The company invested in Access ERP several years back with the intent of creating a standard platform to support the business’s increasingly complex supply chain. While the ERP system addressed the business planning and procurement processes, the next stage of development was to improve the analysis of shop floor performance. Central to this was the ability to integrate Mestec into Access ERP and Access Orchestrate.

 

Streamlining shop floor data collection

Martin’s Rubber had moved away from paper-based shop floor data collection some 20 years ago, having developed its own business software systems. However, the company felt that continuing to support this in-house software was not a core strength and presented too much of a risk to its operations in the long term. The business sees its use of Mestec as part of an on-going evolution towards the ‘digital factory’, combining and integrating with Access ERP and Orchestrate.

“Mestec manages the shop-floor experience – it closes the loop with our ERP and the factory, and enables accurate shop floor data collection,” says Adam.

“As an interface, the information flow is two-way. As well as collecting data, we use it as a way to communicate back to the shop floor. We share work-to lists, send drawings and give real-time feedback to operators. Being able to present that information electronically enables us to keep everything relevant to the shop floor in one place, and relevant in real time. Accurate shopfloor data collection is critical to us and to the success of our ERP.”

 

Integrating Access and Mestec is a major step on the journey of Industry 4.0 for Martin’s Rubber. Manufacturers are increasingly seeing the value of replacing manual and paper-based processes with automated systems that can increase productivity while helping to reduce costs and human error on the shop floor. By building an in-depth picture of what is happening in its factory, this is exactly what Martin’s Rubber has managed to achieve.

Industry 4.0 will not necessarily be simple but research conducted for EEF found that 80% of manufacturers believe that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will become a reality for many by 2025.

This might seem a long way off but compared to other great industrial transformations it’s an incredibly short timeframe. Certainly, this isn’t something manufacturers can put off or ignore if they want to survive in the long term.

The company has also use Access Orchestrate and Access Payroll.