A Digital Platform for an Agile Manufacturer

Client
Hensol Castle Distillery

Location
Hensol, Vale of Glamorgan

Project Duration
12 Months

At Hensol Castle Distillery, we wanted a data collection to help the team better understand the live performance of their line throughout production as well as allowing the team to see how their performance changes from product to product.

Hensol Castle Distillery also presented a common problem to use when we were working to designed their digital platform. The team were looking to avoid interfering with the existing equipment that was installed on their line as they didn’t want to cause problems with a working system and had plans to upgrade the equipment in the near future.

What we came up with was a wrap around digital platform that could deliver the required detail from their line without directly interfacing with the equipment. The ‘Wrap-Around’ system involves a set of data nodes placed at their key stations that automatically collects data on the number of parts produced and the duration of any stoppages on the line. In addition, they also allow the shop floor team to record the number of rejected products and their reasons, as well as the reasons for downtime.

This data is collected into a central database were we design a number of dashboards that could pull data out of the database and present it to the relevant party. The shop floor are presented with a summary of the parts made as well as upcoming changeovers, while the office team can get a breakdown of how the run is going. The production manager and engineering manager were both given iPads where they could see the live state of the line along with a breakdown of the stoppages.

All of the data in the system could also be exported into reports to outline the production of a particularly period of time or singular product. This included a breakdown of the performance of each machine, leading causes of quality and availability losses, and comparison against the target.

With the system now in place Hensol has been able to improve the communication between the shop floor and the office allowing for faster decision making and better transparency. The team have also been able to better understand the barriers to better performance and can target improvement activities at specific processes, equipment, and products. The system was also able to be easily removed and reinstalled when they recently upgraded their line without the need to change any settings or installation of new hardware.