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Optimizing Production with Automated ID
Nokian Tyres is a Finnish company that develops and manufactures winter and summer tyres for cars. The company’s turnover for the year 2006 totalled 836MEUR. About 6 million tyres are produced annually with a daily production of 18.000 units.
The automated ID implementation covers
two manufacturing lines and 27 assembly
lines at the production plant in Finland. The
manufacturing lines use raw material to create
different tire components that are stored
on wagons until needed. Forklifts deliver
components to assembly lines according to
the tire type being produced.
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The Challenge
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To manage production, Nokian Tyres uses a just-in-tome (JIT) stock control process based on Kanban principles |
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Actual stock control consisted of a manual system of markers (cards) associated with the wagons that hold the tire components |
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To optimize the manufacturing process and better control key assets, Nokian Tyres wanted to automate their Kanban process |
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EB, Trackway and Confidex was selected to meet Nokian Tyres's challenge |
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Solution Approach
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Adopting a new technology can be risky, especially
in the context of a well-developed
manufacturing process. It is important to
plan the development carefully and test the
solution properly. To ensure successful rollout
of an automated ID solution, a phased
development process was followed (illustrated left). To reduce the possibility of disruption to the
manufacturing process, it is important to
carefully develop, test and integrate the new
solution. The pilot phase proves the concept
and allows for a more detailed integration
plan for introducing the new solution into a
commercial environment. The first exposure takes place in an isolated deployment, minimizing
the risk to the commercial venture.
Successful isolated deployments can then be
integrated into a complete system solution. |
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Solution overview
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The automated ID system is a combination of EB's Identification Network concepts, EB RFID Readers, Trackway Manufacturing and RFID server software and Confidex Survivor RFID tags |
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The manufacturing system processes tens of thousands events daily, ensuring the real-time status of production is available instantly |
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The system also handles exception circumstances |
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Benefits
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Clear increase in productivity |
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Assembly line efficiency has significantly improved through more accurate, real-time reporting and directing of manufacturing and stock control |
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Losses due to material waste and errors have reduced |
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Improvements in flexibility |
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