GOSHEN, INDIANA May 11, 2018 — Hertzler Systems Inc. has released the latest version of its flagship GainSeeker® Suite Software. The latest release builds on the manufacturing intelligence platform to allow supervisors to understand what is happening right now on the plant floor. While GainSeeker has always provided analytics to optimize production, this release includes [...]

Recently we released a new eBook: Overfill and Package Weight Control. The new eBook outlines a proven approach to ensure compliance while minimizing product give-away. Food manufacturers and packaging companies face difficult and competing challenges. On one hand, increasing and often volatile material costs squeeze profits. On the other hand, government regulations impose stiff penalties on any manufacturer who fails to meet its label claim. Additionally, manufacturer’s reputations suffer if they are perceived to short-change their customers. Fortunately, there are well established, time-tested methods that enable the manufacturer to scientifically optimize their business process to ensure compliance AND minimize product give-away. The Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit summarizes those methods and describes a process to reduce product give-away by the scientific management of product overfill.

Greetings! Today let's talk about the Multiple Date Range feature inside GainSeeker. This little gem is super powerful. It makes looking at summary data across various time periods really easy. Want to see week over week capability for the last quarter for a key product? Piece of cake. How about day-by-day changes in the mean and spread of the process over the last two weeks? Easy. The Multiple Date Range feature makes it so easy to see what is going on in your process, and makes decision-making faster and easier.

We’re very excited to release our new GainSeeker Platform Library Audit & Compliance Kit. As we’ve shared in the past, the GainSeeker Platform Library (GPL) is a collection of ideas, best practices, and tools for maximizing the value users get from deploying GainSeeker Suite. The GPL Audit and Compliance Kit makes it easy to set up simple audit processes to ensure that routine work is performed accurately and on time.

Greetings everyone!!  Let me shamelessly plug our next GainSeeker Tech Tips LIVE webinar.  It is April 19th and the topic is on our new and improved GainSeeker Desktops in version 8.9! (Link to register is at the bottom.) With this topic in mind, I thought to myself, "I wonder if everyone knows about or uses [...]

Here are two new opportunities for you to participate in the GainSeeker Platform Library design and review cycles: Overall Equipment Effectiveness Kit and the Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit.

The GainSeeker Platform Library of solutions (GPL) is picking up momentum. While it is still in beta mode, we’re already hearing enthusiastic support from clients. Recently we hosted some deep dive demos into the early draft of a new Audit and Compliance Kit with a handful of clients. These demos were a great learning experience for all of us. These experiences made me want to engage even more closely with you in developing the GainSeeker Platform Library solutions. Here is how you can participate.

Python scripts are here, and they are really, really cool. If you have not noticed yet, our PC Collect module continues to replace (and improve on) our "oldie, but goodie" Data Entry Module. One reason PC Collect is replacing Date Entry: you can do so much more "out-of-the-box" using the drag and drop Inspection Editor. The Inspection Editor makes setting up data entry much easier because you don't need to know template commands. And for those Template gurus who create innovative and complex data collection processes, no need to worry. We made it easy to customize Inspections using Python scripts. Before we added Python scripts to Inspections, the only Python I knew was the snake. With just a little experience, I've found Python scripts easy to learn, and they seem more logical than template coding. So this month I decided to write about Python scripts because the more you know, the friendlier it becomes to you. Thus, my title: Three degrees of Python scripts. I thought it might be helpful to think about three degrees or levels of Python scripting skills.

A multi-plant manufacturer of metal products was ready for a change. They enjoyed an excellent reputation in the marketplace, but the good reputation came at a price. Internal scrap and rework metrics told the story.

One of the first kits we released in the GainSeeker Platform Library is the Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit. Developing the Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit was an easy decision because this is an application area where clients have seen an early and substantial return on their investment. For example, an early Hertzler case study was about a client who used the forerunner of GainSeeker Suite - QA/S for DOS if you’re an old-timer - to reduce overfill. Using our innovative “Seven Way SPC Sort”, he was able to pin down and remove variation in the performance of filler heads in a bottle fill line. The company was filling bottles of a popular household window cleaner. The client reported that they had reduced overfill by a couple of grams per line. I remember he said: “A couple grams are nothing to the consumer. But when you add that up across all the product we sell per year, it’s a lot of money to our company.”