Hutchinson Body Sealing: Building Better Products, Faster

Bob Hanson, CEO of Hutchinson’s Body Sealing Division, is responsible for 7 North American plants. Hear how these plants use ShopVue to enforce the 3 rules he lives by:

• 1. Be on time.
• 2. Be prepared.
• 3. Talk with data.

The Problem:

One day Bob decided to stand in one place on the shop floor for a couple of hours to monitor actions in real-time. His key take-aways were:

• Operators were leaving their workstations, and not being productive, every time they needed to request materials.
• Parts were in the scrap bin and nothing was annotated on the paperwork because it was an inconvenient paper-based process.
• They were unable to fix issues fast enough to make a difference until everyone had access toreal-time visibility into the activities on the shop floor.
• All 7 factories had different processes so they would need to put technology in place to align operations across all sites.

The Solution:

It was decided, implementing an MES was the next project for his team. “We understood that putting an MES in place in all our plants would optimize our labor and machine performance and at the same time start collecting useful data to focus my team on the right priorities for continuous improvement.”

Of the MES systems evaluated, ShopVue was the easiest to operate, with the fewest clicks, which meant less time reporting and more time producing. Operators report scrap in as little as one click.

Hutchinson had a false start with their MES journey, they made the mistake of spending a year trying to “build their own” by taking the bones of a Rockwell solution and adding workflows and features. Ultimately, like many others who have tried, they did not complete it and it did not meet their goals.

The goal was access to real-time data. ShopVue provided dashboards and KPIs at all levels-operator, work cell, and plant management. Some of the most valuable metrics they now have visibility into are attainment by shift goals and efficiency trends.

Yet the most standout deciding factor was ShopVue’s team of consultants. They brought years of experience working with manufacturers, knowing when to steer Hutchinson to an out of the box solution and knowing when best to apply configurations that met their specific needs.

ShopVue’s Production Traceability Gets Results

ShopVue’s Production Traceability solution provides Hutchinson with a full genealogy of their processes, achieving the full compliance that the automotive industry requires.

Hutchinson gained insights to state, quantity and yield from their machines through ShopVue’s Direct Machine Interface. Data is even directly gathered from scales, measuring the weights of raw materials, and validating with the BOM consumption numbers.
 
Before ShopVue, it took 24 hours before data was logged making it impossible to react in support of that day’s performance numbers. With ShopVue, Hutchinson can now “Talk With Data,” understanding why certain activities are happening and getting that information in real-time so they can react to it.
 

“With accurate data, collected directly from our machines and operators, we were able to use analytics, dashboards, and business intelligence to focus our teams on processes and workflows that improve yield by better monitoring production, quality and process control.”

Robert Hanson, CEO, Hutchinson

About Hutchinson Precision Sealing

Hutchinson designs and manufactures smart transportation sealing solutions that provide vibration, acoustics, and thermal insulation. Hutchinson Sealing Systems operates worldwide and serves customers in the aerospace, defense, railroad, helicopter, marine and automotive industries. For more information, please visit www.hutchinson.com.

About CAI ShopVue MES

As the leading MES software for mid-to enterprise-sized manufacturers, ShopVue —provides a comprehensive solution to bridging the gap between the shop floor and your ERP. ShopVue optimizes shop floor performance, data collection, and control by managing a factory’s orders, people, and machines. Its high level of out-of-the-box functionality and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) interfaces with SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, Infor XA and Syteline and others to reduce implementation cost, time and risk. ShopVue utilizes a suite of modules to help manufacturing companies globally with quality control, provide real-time yield and efficiency reporting, effective labor management, OEE, and Lot Traceability. ShopVue is in Portland, Maine, USA and is a subsidiary of CAI Software, LLC.