The new filler increased the line throughput marginally. Although the line was fully integrated, the line experienced discontinuous operation, and speeds were not always optimal for each SKU and product type.

During our audit of the line, we determined that the filling equipment was not continually operating at maximum speed. This was due to several factors, including operator behaviors, control system inefficiencies, and a lack of access to detailed line performance information.

With the addition of monitoring sensors, and the replacement of the existing control system with Lyne Optimization, we assured our customer we could achieve a minimum 10% productivity improvement, which equates to a 10% reduction in labor cost.

To ensure Morgan Hill’s operation ran consistently at optimum speed, Lyne Systems installed our Optimization System, a new Control Station, and the Lyne Intelligence Suite which links to Lyne Dashboards for analysis.

Our Optimization System includes the addition of sensors to ensure we’re collecting all the important data, as well as improved controls that use our algorithms to ensure the line is always running at maximum capacity.

The new Control Station was installed to show operators status of orders as they proceeded through the line. The Control Station also provides continuous information about equipment performance and notifies Operators about areas where their attention is required.  Operators no longer need to use the control screen to make decisions about how to run the line, those decisions are automated for them. 

The Lyne Intelligence Suite collects and contextualizes data from the entire production environment, provides tools that intelligently act on that data, and feeds the data to all decision-makers as the KPI’s that they deem important. These tools include Scheduler, which automatically schedules the entire day’s orders to meet delivery times, and the PCDB, which automatically configures the line equipment to meet the specifications of the scheduled orders. This significantly reduced both the changeover times of every line, as well as the administrative effort required to plan for each day. 

Finally, the Lyne Dashboards were added to present important, actionable data to the entire team. This allowed Operators and Management to monitor and evaluate line performance in real-time, and easily create production reports using any number of filters.

The final result of the Lyne Upgrade was a simple to operate line that is always running at maximum capacity, providing a far greater throughput increase than was originally provided by the new filler.