A new digital board provides Mantena’s wheel department with better oversight of which tasks should be prioritized. The result is increased production and improved quality.
In Mantena’s wheel department at Grorud, all tasks are now displayed in prioritized order on a screen, along with user-friendly graphs showing status and development.
The screen is updated regularly throughout the workday—so that employees can easily see which tasks they should start with first.
Benefits for everyone
The digital board is a result of the “flow project” that the wheel department has carried out in recent months. The project was initiated with the assistance of EY, based on the principles of Operational Excellence – which is about optimizing efficiency and quality while reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction.
– The wheel department now produces better and more efficiently. In addition, we are building up inventory where possible—which benefits both customers and colleagues, says Bert Sterken, delivery manager for wheels at Mantena.
He adds:
– By producing correctly, motivation is also created among employees to work towards even better throughput times.
From continuous pressure to prioritized needs
Before the project started, the wheel department experienced continuous pressure regarding delivery of wheelsets.
– Additionally, the wheel planner did not receive the input he needed from the front line to form an overview of needs, says Sterken.
With the improved workflow and digital board, the wheel planner can create a prioritization list based on needs from the front line and the bogie department, as well as the need to build inventory of wheelsets. This provides a better production flow in the department, with correct delivery at the right time—what is known as “Just in time” within Lean philosophy.
Better structure
The project has also had a major focus on 5S (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize and Sustain), HSE and quality. The department therefore started with a “tidying up” at the various workstations, with the help of regular board meetings and employee engagement.
– Employees decided themselves how their workstation should look, what kind of tools they needed, and how they could facilitate the most efficient possible operations, explains Sterken.
The working methods for the various wheelsets have also been described and mapped by the employees.
– This documentation, in turn, helps new employees and apprentices gain better insight into what the work involves, points out the delivery manager.
Transforming core data into user-friendly insights
The digital board has been developed through a collaboration between the IT and digitalization department at Mantena and technology partner EY Skye. Mantena’s IT system MiMS and tools for analysis and reporting have been important in the process.
– The core data are pulled from the work orders in MiMS. Each work order is marked with one of three categories: Prioritized-Runner Wheel, Prioritized-Gearbox or Inventory Production, explains Katrin Hasund, System Owner BI and Data Warehouse at Mantena.
This marking makes it possible to place the work orders in the correct locations on the dashboard of the digital board. Trends and changes in the production of runner wheels and drive wheels or gearboxes are also displayed.
Sterken and Hasund are very pleased with the results of the flow project.
– It’s fantastic to see what interdisciplinary collaboration between Planning, Production, and IT and Digitalization can achieve, says the unanimous duo.