Auto Components Growth Drives to MES with a Future

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Use Cases

Manufacturing System Automation
Predictive Maintenance

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services

The Challenge

Yazaki Saltano, a molded plastic parts supplier in Portugal, was facing challenges in managing its high-volume molding operation with paper records and Excel. The company was planning to add many more molding machines and realized that it needed a more robust control system. A previous attempt to implement a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) had failed due to unreliable communication between the molding machines and the MES. This, coupled with plans to add even more machines, created a strong incentive for Yazaki Saltano to choose the right partner and succeed with the MES implementation.

About The Customer

Yazaki Saltano is a Portugal-based company that is part of the Yazaki Group, which has 476 locations worldwide. The company specializes in the production of a variety of wire, cable, and wiring harnesses used by many automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The MES was implemented in the plastic injection-molded parts division of Yazaki Saltano. The company was planning to add many more molding machines to its operation, which was being managed with paper records and Excel spreadsheets. The company had previously attempted to implement an MES, but the project had failed due to unreliable communication between the molding machines and the MES.

The Solution

Yazaki Saltano selected Critical Manufacturing’s MES to connect to dozens of existing and new molding machines. The implementation project started and progressed smoothly, with daily half-hour status meetings and an agile approach that allowed the team to see screens as they were configured. A few months into the project, it was put on hold due to a slow wide area network (WAN), but once this issue was resolved, the team was able to finish the project. The implementation included Critical Manufacturing’s core modules for MES, statistical process control (SPC), ERP integration, and machine connection. Yazaki provided new computers and touch-screen tablets for operators to use the MES Graphical User Interface (GUI) cockpit.

Operational Impact

Fewer errors from forgetting to record data or poor handwriting.
Work arrives to operators in priority order, so they know when they arrive at a machine they can set-up and go.
Supervisors now train and manage people with time saved transferring information from paper to Excel.

Quantitative Benefit

Despite growth and the addition of new molding machines, Yazaki needed no new white-collar employees.
After a short period of use, Yazaki also shifted sign-on to employee IDs, making log-in faster than using a username and password.