Peacock Brothers enhance their production processes via Quantum
[Copied from an initial article by Roger Coles in Labels Plus magazine]
Andrew Crump, Operations Manager at Peacock Brothers, a Melbourne based Label Manufacturer, has recently installed the Quantum Print Efficiency Management System from Kingston Data Systems at their manufacturing plants in Melbourne and Sydney. We caught up with Andrew, and Mike from Kingston Data Systems, to find out how its all going.
“Quantum has given us the management tools and ability, to capture exactly what is happening in our manufacturing facilities at any one time,” explained Andrew. “We get a precise picture of the time; materials; and performance of each press, against the quoted estimate, giving visibility right down to the bottom line.
“Integrated with our WMS, its capturing raw materials in – materials out, including wastage. We always costed for butt roll waste however we were never able to capture each of these rolls against the actual job cost. It’s about clear visibility into the production facilities and getting a grip on the finer details of each press.”
Andrew said the company always knew these unaccounted-for costs were an issue, but as the business grew capturing these costs became mission critical. “The questions were: Are we performing the way we should be? Are we getting the jobs out at the cost we have estimated? And can we improve on our performance against our estimate? All these are important to our bottom line, but we had no clear way to measure them. “Previously, costings were a manual entry, open to operator interpretation, which didn’t give us 100% confidence in the numbers that were emerging. “Involving Kingston Data Systems (KDS) came about via a conversation with Chris Bodger from Aldus-Tronics,” said Andrew. “He mentioned the Quantum product that Mike Young, Managing Director at KDS had available, and suggested we should investigate it.”
“Prior to my move to Australia,”, said Mike, “I owned a company in the UK called Visi-tech. At that time we primarily manufactured web inspection products, but we also developed a product that we named Girus. It was a similar product to Quantum and we installed it in a number of label companies there, with very, very good results. While there is more automation on the factory floor, particularly over the past 10 years, a lot of companies are still using manual data collection, either through a computer, or through written time-sheets. Sometimes that data is good, sometimes bad, but the trouble is, that it is almost never consistent. And that means management doesn’t have the confidence to make decisions based on that data.”
Mike said the Quantum product basically retrofits onto the printing machine and becomes part of the printing process. “It is monitoring the speed of the machine; the data; monitoring activity if there are wash-ups or make-readies; reel changes; and measuring the time for everything very accurately, directly on the machine. So the data you are getting from our system is highly accurate and it allows management to make decisions based on it. When I got in touch with Andrew, we were redeveloping Girus with some exciting new technologies, making it cloud-based so it would work over multiple sites – and Andrew was interested.
“We have our Sydney and Melbourne sites both running KDS – all cloud-based – with live data feeds. This gives me the flexibility to logon form anywhere in the world,” Andrew said. “I can see the live performance of our facilities, presses, and tracking of jobs. Which job is up on the press; and percentage through. The information coming out of it is fantastic. We’re now getting 100% accurate data that I am confident in, and when speaking to operators around their performance on any particular job, it’s 100% correct.”
“Our operators were also requesting a form of KPI be put in place so they could be recognised for returning a better result on jobs over any given period. Previously this was something that we were unable to deliver as we had no reliable way to measure this. KDS has now allowed us to implement a performance based KPI. We can now instantly request a performance report, over any given period, with detailed results displaying for each of our operators and departments.”
Mike explained to us that the original Quantum system was designed initially exclusively for printing machines, whether that be wide-web or narrow-web. “But we have further developed the system now for print finishing processes, which wasn’t something we originally designed it for. But with the assistance of Peacock Bros. who gave us the requirements of what they needed, we went on to tailor the software to work in their rewinding / finishing departments.”
Asked to sum up what Peacock Brothers were achieving with this new management tool they didn’t have before, Andrew quickly said: “It has enabled us to more accurately work in our estimating department, as we are now receiving trusted results and feedback on the performance of everything we do. Kingston Data Systems also adapted the Quantum software for its installation at Peacock Bros. to include the finishing departments.
I am also getting a lot of positive feedback from the operators now that everything is visible. There is a conscious concern around performance vs estimate. Operators are taking a personal interest in everything that goes through our presses, giving valuable feedback on potentially under- estimated jobs. I have also seen a noticeably positive change in the working environment with a fresh competitive edge.