Certact Engineering i4.0 transformation resulting in OEE improvement from 42% to 78%
Case in point: Certact Engineering
At a glance
Focus: Certact Engineering i4.0 transformation resulting in OEE improvement from 42% to 78%
Challenge: The company was underutilizing its CNC machines due to a lack of machinists, resulting in chronic late deliveries of parts to customers.
Approach: An overall assessment of company readiness for Industry 4.0 was conducted based on the SIRI (Smart Industry Readiness Index) assessment and prioritization, leading to vertical integration through automation, connectivity, and intelligent systems — including roboticization of machine tending, a DNC system connecting CNC machines to the programmer, and an IIoT connection for a centralized OEE dashboard.
Impact: Real-time visibility of operations was achieved, and OEE increased from 42% to 78%.
Flexspeed Technology
Flexspeed is a specialized machine tools manufacturer and distributor of CNC machine tools,offering state of the art technology for the precision engineering industry. Flexspeed is also a solutions provider for vertical warehousing management, manufacturing iSMART ERP software and robotics system integrator providing robotics automation solutions for CNC machine tending applications as well as customized solutions for customers’ specific automation requirements across a range of industries.
To learn more, please visit: https://www.flexspeed.com.sg
Certact Engineering
Established in 1968, Certact is a precision engineering company based in Singapore that focuses on precision engineering and high value plastics. They have several manufacturing plants in Singapore and one in Suzhou, China.
Business challenge
Company was under utilizing its CNC machines due to a lack of machinists.
Chronic late deliveries of parts to customers.
Industry 4.0 solution
Overall assessment of company readiness for i4.0 based on SIRI assessment and prioritization
Vertical integration by means of automation, connectivity and intelligent systems Roboticization of machine tending
DNC system to connect between CNC machines and programmer
IioT connection to set up centralized dashboard to view operation metrics eg OEE
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Visibility & Analytics | Real time visibility of operations achieved. |
| Productivity & Throughput | Increased OEE from 42% to 78% |
Technologies used
Change management and implementation
For this project, we were integrating our robotic system to 2 CNC machines that were not supplied by our company. As such we foresaw that we may face some difficulties with the machine integration due to the lack of I/Os etc. With our expertise in CNC machine tools, we made the necessary provisions to ensure that our system was able to integrate smoothly with the machine.
Integration was with in-house resources. Robots, modules and peripheral items were procured.
Machinist / user buy in was sought right from the beginning which led to the successful adoption of the project.