Are your machines as productive as they can be? This tool can find out.

Frasers – Network affiliate of Canadian Manufacturing.com – December 11, 2014 – “If you can measure it, then you can manage it.” That’s the motto of Burlington, Ont.-based Memex Automation, a leader in the connection, monitoring and management of machines, sensors and processes in manufacturing.

The company’s MERLIN OEE tool monitors machines in real-time.

“To be able to visualize how quickly your machines are operating allows you to react quickly to situations,” the company says. “Measuring what actually happens on the shop floor allows you to fine tune your processes using Lean manufacturing techniques. By applying the Theory of Constraints principle to monitoring and identifying a constraint, you can improve operator productivity and satisfaction by helping them perform faster, reduce their data collection overhead, all by using automatic and accurate tracking systems. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is the key performance indicator that drives this machine monitoring process forward.”

There are many clear benefits to machine monitoring. Users can see the productivity and increased profitability as it happens in real-time, and identify problems fast. This can increase plant-wide productivity in the range of 10 to 50 per cent. Dashboard metrics are available for everyone on the shop floor to see, and it’s a time-saving, money-saving solution that will increase productivity and profitability in the long run

MERLIN is designed to monitor every machine in your shop — CNC machines, non-CNC machines, fabrication centres and manual processes — all tied together in a production process manufacturing execution system.

MERLIN OEE solution software can find every little area for improvement in your cycle times to best utilize your machines. It knows when the machines are in cycle and when they are not in cycle, and what is causing the machine to slow down. While most companies believe they are operating to their full capacity, it turns out they are, in fact, far from it. MERLIN OEE will show you that there is always room for improvement, and you will always be able to operate faster, and more efficiently, than you already are.

If you can identify the constraints (where the bottlenecks are happening in the production process), then you can improve your throughput and increase your overall profitability.

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