Start by working smarter, not harder. Despite the physical constraints of equipment size and the square footage at AGCO’s Fendt plant located near Munich in Germany, they were able to accelerate throughput, improving capacity utilization to an impressive 96 percent, an increase of over 60%. Does this sound too good to be true? Don’t take my word for it. Hear them explain in their own words in this short video.
Capacity utilization was increased by taking a close look at how processes were performed, with an objective of improving efficiency and reducing equipment downtime. Continuous improvement is much easier to identify and implement when your IT systems are process-based, enabling both measurement and rapid enhancement.
AGCO leveraged their next generation manufacturing execution system to support and expand their Lean program. After all, you can’t improve what you can’t measure (see related post on this topic here). This system is now being used to help make strategic production decisions as well as to gain better visibility in order to make more informed decisions.
An important metric for AGCO (and many other manufacturers) is machine downtime … less is better! Their new solution has been effective in improving this metric. With better visibility to real-time information for WIP and production orders, faster decision making and response times are now possible. This process improvement then improved Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) – an important metric AGCO uses to measure their plant’s efficiency.
AGCO explains in their video how they used their Apriso solution to help with the daily planning and distribution of their production orders across the shop floor. Maintenance management has been simplified, with integrated user screens to immediately request assistance from their maintenance team, helping them to better address equipment issues, resulting in even greater machine uptime.
Not only did AGCO improve their machine uptime, but they were able to immediately measure the performance improvement, thereby easily justifying investment in the new system. Here is a summary of all the benefits achieved:
- Improved OEE
- Increased maintenance efficiency
- Reduced scrap rates
- Greater process consistency, from shop floor up to executive management suite
- Higher quality
- Improved visibility
- Better throughput, with zero machinery investment
There aren’t many situations in life where you can achieve so much for a single investment – an investment that can be measured quickly to demonstrate a strong ROI. Good thing for the management team at AGCO. Bad thing for their competitors!
