Cosworth’s shopfloor connection goes further and faster

Time is money, especially in motor sport – and in engineering terms, other challenges include products invariably specified to close tolerances, small batch sizes, very tight lead times and frequent modifications. That’s certainly the picture at Cosworth Racing, which is among the world leaders in designing, developing and manufacturing high performance engines for race, rally and road cars. So this is a good place to look for ways to streamline complex production. And you won’t be disappointed. As part of its continuous improvement programme, the firm has recently extended its DNC and shop floor manufacturing information system, resulting in better optimised production processes – and major time, cost and productivity benefits. It’s been so successful that Cosworth is now looking at linking in customer order and production requirements data to the shopfloor to further improve its efficiency and responsiveness to change. According to machine shop manager Paul Green at the Northampton site, his DNC and shop floor manufacturing data system, installed some years ago by developer DloG, started the path to real productivity improvement. Back then, by providing manufacturing data – like tool lists, machine offsets, process sheets, gauging requirements, product drawings and graphical set-up information – as well as the machine tool programs directly to shop floor operators via PCs in the manufacturing cells, it had greatly improved production efficiency. But that was just the start. More recently, says Green, manufacturing wanted to understand what its machine tools – which are organised as functional cells for specific build, like crank shafts and cylinder heads, although with some specialist machine sharing – were doing and get production times more accurately and in real time. “We recognised that up-to-the-minute information on the status of each machine tool could hold the key to maximising utilisation of our production resources, as well as optimising throughput.” Additionally, reasons for stoppages could be held on a database and analysed to assist with continuous improvement. At the time, set-up, delays and production periods were being recorded manually on cards, with data being entered onto Excel forms – resulting in delays, errors, incomplete records and wasted resource, while the firm was coming under pressure to provide more information on quality and delivery times. Green’s project team evaluated several automated data collection systems, but came back to Dlog and its Prisma for obvious reasons. Green says the support had been good, and “it became clear they could not only fulfil our requirements, but provide a protected path for future development.” Cosworth phased the installation, starting with a three-month pilot in the connecting rod production section. All went well, with the system duly recording information on machine status and stoppages via hardware signals, while providing for manual input for information like machines stopped awaiting materials. In fact, since operators may be away from a cell when machines complete their cycles, the system has been configured to lock a machine tool after a pre-determined period, so preventing it from being re-started until a reason for delay has been entered. Cell leaders could get a real-time overview of production status, machine utilisation and delays, with reports being generated automatically for production management, supervisors and the manufacturing director. Cosworth Racing has since rolled out the system throughout its remaining six production areas in Northampton. Dlog did provide training for all shifts, but Green says the system’s on-screen dialogues made it easy for operators to become proficient quickly anyway, and that this contributed to acceptance of the new software. “We also held weekly meetings with staff to discuss the recorded data, highlight any issues and review any possible improvements,” he says. It’s this that has enabled continuous improvement to continue. “Our team leaders have effectively gained an extra hour a day to devote to productive work. As a result, we have optimised our production processes – with major time, cost and productivity benefits.” Next up will be interfacing the machine monitoring system directly to Cosworth’s Preactor finite capacity scheduler. That system has been in use for some time for shopfloor planning and sequencing across the cells, linked to the firm’s ManMan MRPII sales and materials management system, formerly from Computer Associates but now in the tender care of SSA Global Technologies. But feedback from the factory floor is currently an additional manual process, with operators logging themselves on and off jobs. Harnessing real time information should take responsiveness and customer service that additional bit further. Indeed for the future, Green says that, notwithstanding the current IT review under Cosworth Racing’s new management team – which is looking at everything from its engineering change control systems to engine build management and the fundamentals of manufacturing to rebalance for more flexibility – he would like to extend DloG. First he wants to establish modern tool management with the system and then link all customer order and production requirements data from Manman to the shop floor electronically. His goal: not only would Cosworth create an almost entirely paperless production environment, it would further ramp up efficiency and flexibility as accurate information reaches those that need it faster.