They cover a wide field
Rynkeby Machine Shop has customers from many different industries, including brake manufacturers, pump manufacturers, cogeneration plants, agricultural industry, wind energy, etc. The tasks are all kinds of milling, turning, and grinding processes of small and large workpieces. For example, transmissions, brake components, bar machined parts, pistons, screw compressor houses, and fast spindles. Materials range from steel to aluminium, cast iron, and stainless steel. Rynkeby Machine Shop is also a total supplier of complete solutions.
The scheduling was inaccurate and time consuming
Before the investment in ROB-EX, Rynkeby Machine Shop had another scheduling system that did not work properly. Therefore, production planning was done with paper and scissors primarily. When they received an order on e-mail it was prepared for production in the business management system C5. The calculated time for the order and all the operations were cut out of cardboard and put on a gantt chart. This scheduling system took a long time and when changes were made, they had to move all the cardboard pieces that belonged to the specific order to new places. An extensive and time consuming task which also had the consequence that it was difficult to provide customers with valid order confirmations.
ROB-EX has made a difference
The investment in ROB-EX has brought changes to the planning process at Rynkeby Machine Shop. When the order has been entered and processed in C5, it is now exchanged with ROB-EX. Here the order is scheduled so that it does not delay other orders, while respecting the delivery date. On the basis of this information from ROB-EX, Rynkeby Machine Shop sends an order confirmation to the customer.
The order’s progress through the production will be shown in ROB-EX, both in terms of production start and number of manufactured items. When operations are reported as finished, it is also seen in ROB-EX. At the end the order ends up in the shipping department where it is packed and provided with a delivery note, and the order will now be shown as finished in ROB-EX.
Via screens on the production floor, operators report how much they have done. ROB-EX is afterwards updated via import from C5, and the production schedule and status on all orders are updated.
Increased productivity
ROB-EX secures that orders are scheduled with a minimum of waiting time in the production and this means that Rynkeby Machine Shop can get more orders through the production machinery without changing the number of machines or employees, but just by optimize the utilization of already existing capacity. This means increased turnover and better revenue.
Better ability to deliver
Allan Bang Steffensen is production manager at Rynkeby Machine Shop and he states the following about the investment: “We have improved our ability to deliver because now we have a powerful tool for managing the production planning. We can provide a valid delivery date and if everything does not go as expected, we can inform the customer in due time and thus still be a reliable supplier. At the same time, there has been more time for follow-up on the shop floor because the scheduling in ROB-EX saves time compared to the cardboard strips system.
