A plastics molding company uses Alpha and AlphaVision signs to monitor production processes. This case study describes how displaying real-time information on Alpha signs saves money, cuts waste, keeps production moving smoothly, increases equipment utilization, reduces downtime, reduces scrap and postpones capital costs.

Engineered Plastics
Milwaukee, WI
Case Study documents, including hardware-software connection flowchart - (PDF 1.6 MB)

Customer Need:

Management of Engineered Plastics Corporation, a plastics molding facility specializing in short run, highly engineered parts, desired to monitor plant-wide processes and variations from a single location using an HMI (Human Machine Interface) system. Management also wanted to make that information available to all employees in order to improve reaction time to any parameter variations.


Solution:

Engineered Plastics now forwards real-time production data from the HMI system to ALPHA™ LED marquees situated around the plant. In addition, scrap counts are sent to the marquees every two hours. All operations employees can observe the strategically located marquees from their workstations. The following messages are displayed on two 4' x 6' large ALPHA marquees (16 lines down x 40 characters across) with red, green, and yellow characters:

• Process status: Machine and part numbers, operator ID, real-time good parts count, and scrap counts/reject rate.
• Parameter variations: Real-time status of each parameter in all 16 processes, such as injection boost time, injection hold time, cushion, temperature, and back pressure. Parameter characters turn from green to red when the parameter exceeds normal limits; yellow, if it drops below limits.

Benefits:

1. Enhanced Reaction Time - Formerly, an operator may have noticed a problem by visually observing plastic build up around a poorly performing part. Operators now detect and resolve these problems earlier when they see parameter variances on ALPHA marquees.

2. Reduced Scrap & Reject Parts - Because operators identify problems well before many flawed parts are produced, the company experiences reduced levels of reject parts, scrap and wasted raw materials.

3. Decreased Downtime & Reduced Repair Costs - Informed employees more efficiently resolve issues and decrease downtime. Moreover, fewer machine parts break due to plastic build up, requiring time-consuming, costly repair.

4. Increased Machine Utilization & Postponed Capital Costs - When machine downtime drops, utilization rates rise. And increased utilization allows the company to postpone investment in new machinery.