Problem: Parts accessibility

To compete effectively today, pushing parts out the door seems the best way to increase profitability. Certainly, increased machining productivity is critical to any shop’s survival. But, what Avon Gear Company of Rochester Hills, Michigan recently discovered is that cost savings can present itself in some surprising ways.

Avon’s SupplyPort Program Leader Gerald Pitts (right) illustrates how the tool management system works. Equipped with Seco single insert dispensers, each drawer can hold 1,280 inserts versus only 96 under the old storage system.

Avon Gear makes precision-machined components and subassemblies for heavy industrial equipment manufacturers and produces over 600 part numbers in quantities ranging from 5 to 80,000 pieces. With so many complex, high value-added parts being run, processes must continually be examined and optimized, which affects the style and numbers of cutting tools used each day. To better understand its processes, Avon began a Productivity Cost and Analysis (PCA) program with Seco Tools’ Business Solutions. PCA can evaluate the productivity of a single machine tool process or the complete path a workpiece takes on its journey through the shop floor. According to Seco, typical results with PCA reduce tooling costs more than 30 percent and productivity improvements of 40 percent.

At that time, Avon Gear had another company supplying tool vending machines, managing inventory and dispensing product, but was having problems implementing tooling changes as quickly as Seco determined they could be done.

Seco replaced those vending machines with three smaller SecoPoint machines powered by SupplyPro. SecoPoint machines hold more tooling in a smaller space than competitive products. They also featured the new Seco single insert dispenser (SID), which stores 20 individual inserts and distributes one at a time. This new system allowed for 1,280 inserts per drawer versus only 96 under the old one.

Holding it all together is the Seco SupplyPort web portal. All Seco point-of-use devices communicate with SupplyPort, providing Avon both accountability and accuracy as each dispense transaction is recorded and inventory levels are adjusted appropriately.

“With Seco, I spend less than an hour a day managing inventory,” says Gerald Pitts, Avon’s program leader for managing the new system, stocking inventory on a daily basis and managing SupplyPort via the Internet.

“With the old system, I ran back and forth to the supply room three to four times a day. We might have been paying a few cents less per insert, but we were buying a whole lot more than necessary and placing emergency tooling orders all the time.”

Inventory management is just part of the picture. “PCA has increased our productivity — it finds the optimal way to produce a product,” says Aaron Remsing, president of Avon Gear. “For example, a PCA done on a bevel gear proved that we could reduce cycle time by 2.38 minutes per gear, getting more parts out the door in less time. Plus, our tooling costs will decrease by almost 90 percent annually. Improvements like this allow us to keep more work in-house and increase our profitability.” Item 136

This article appeared in the April/May 2007 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2007.

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