Problem:
This automotive manufacturer produces mid size passenger vehicles and utilizes a state of the art automated painting line. To date, this facility has used older style "ANDON" displays that utilize incandescent bulbs and Plexiglas fronts. This older style static display required frequent bulb changes and offered very little information relative to line fault and alarm conditions. This forced line operators to consume unacceptable down time when correcting fault or alarm situations. A separate downtime clock was also purchased and installed to show operators actual downtime information.
Solution:
Data Masters full-matrix displays offered a quantum shift forward in the way of information presentation. These 3' X 6' displays offered superior visibility, ten times increased reliability, integrated clock and alarm/fault messaging, and serial communication. The operators were also able to view traditional static ANDON information like conveyor fault, ID fault, Hoist Fault, Paint Circulation, Door Open, and Dust Vacuum among several other items.
Data Source:
Each operator station was equipped with call station panels that were wired to a PLC. A third party HMI package polled and presented this data, along with fault and alarm messages, to the LED Display over Ethernet TCP/IP.
ROI:
Lost revenue costs associated with downtime were determined to exceed $5,000 per minute. The LED Display solution had an up front cost premium of $4,000 per board ($10,000 Vs $6,000) over the older style incandescent boards. This premium was further reduced by $1,500 when considering the added benefit of having a downtime clock included in the LED Display. The additional real-time fault and alarm information provided an estimated increase in uptime by a 1% minimum. This represented several hundred thousand dollars in annual savings and provided a ROI in less than two months.