Enabling agile manufacturing with SMART Move & Pixcel
Case in point: Measurement instrumentation
At a glance
Focus: Enabling agile manufacturing with SMART Move Pixcel.
Challenge: Customer is in a High mix low volume manufacturing environment because their sales order are on project basis and needed lots of customization.
Approach: Pixel Automation designed their range of highly flexible and scalable SMART manufacturing cells equipped with SmartMove© transportation system into customer’s logistics
Impact: Manpower required reduced by 83%, from 12 headcount to 2 headcount per project
Pixel Automation
Pixel Automation is a Singapore based Company with core business activities of building turnkey industrial automation systems for customers in Singapore and Worldwide.
Since its inception in 2011, company has steadily grown in its market share and become a predominant automation equipment supplier in Singapore and the region. With years of expertise and experience in supporting worldwide MNC companies, Pixel has established strong presence in countries such as South East Asia, China, United States and India.
Measurement instrumentation
Our client is an USA based MNC with core business in measurement instrumentation such as pressure, temperature, level, DP flow, and wireless, as well as analytical and detection instrumentation for gas analysis, liquid analysis, combustion measurement and flame and gas detection.
They have numerous manufacturing plants around the world including Singapore, who is their regional manufacturing plant for Asia.
Business challenge
Customer is in a High mix low volume manufacturing environment because their sales order are on project basis and needed lots of customization. These are the challenges they face in their manufacturing line:
High adaptability to product variation. Customer’s order required with up to 20 different types of products required.
The weight of product can be up to 4kg per part and lead to safety concern with manual handling.
High dependency on operators’ knowledge that led to inconsistency and human errors
Complicated fixture design that restricted the manufacturing scalability and capacity
Poor data traceability.
Industry 4.0 solution
Pixel Automation designed their range of highly flexible and scalable SMART manufacturing cells equipped with SmartMove© transportation system into customer’s production. This patented system give rise to a whole range of benefits to modular and reusable, fast integration capable, multi-product & lot size one capable, scalable and promotes green manufacturing. The cells revolutionary, scalable design makes it suitable for “farm” based manufacturing plant with no restrictions on sequential placement of the machines on the one hand and make it particularly suitable for low volume-high mix manufacturing requirements. The modules are designed based on distributed intelligence concept with full IOT capability to provide product traceability.
Studying customer requirements to develop the needs of more intelligent technology. Lots of conceptual design and proof of concept surveillance had been done with strong partnership with customers to ensure the solution is adequate in solving customer needs.
The SmartMove© transport system enables smart product handling for next generation manufacturing automation. It can easily link up any manual and automated process modules while providing easy setup and maintaining accessibility. Single lot size processing is possible without any modifications to existing machines. SMART features include:
Modular and scalable transport mechanism
IOT pallet with indoor positioning
Decentralized and distributed intelligent control
Built-in data traceability
Multi product and single lot size capability
Lean design as stoppers and sensors not required
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Safety & Workforce | Manpower required reduced by 83%, from 12 headcount to 2 headcount per shift |
| Productivity & Throughput | Productivity increased by 100%. |
| Flexibility & Scalability | Efficiency improved by 150% with flexible module design with Zero changeover |
| Traceability & Compliance | 100% data traceability enabled |
| Productivity & Throughput | Production capacity increased by 50%. |