Situation
Director of Quality, Golf Ball Operations, for Acushnet, makers of Titleist golf balls, the number one ball in golf.
Critical issue
Upper management challenged the director to continually improve the products. However, production and quality data were always at least a day old, and only one person had direct access to the data. Furthermore, there were so many errors in the data that users didn’t trust it for making decisions. Finally, each plant had its own system, and it was very difficult to interact between multiple facilities.
Reason
The company was growing very quickly, but the data collection system was not able to deliver real-time data. Queries had to be run overnight, in batches. Data entry was cumbersome and error prone.
Vision
The director dreamed of a real-time data collection system that was operator friendly, and that could interact between multiple facilities. He also wanted a system that helped him pinpoint where the variation in the system came from, so that he could identify projects that could eliminate variation.
Hertzler Systems provided
We delivered a comprehensive system for tracking both attribute defects and variable measurements. The system connects directly to measuring devices and thereby eliminates operator data entry errors. Everyone involved in the process receives automatic email notifications any time a problem crops up. Data is immediately accessible to all associates, and easy-to-use drill down analytics make it easy to investigate and solve problems. The system is standardized and supported across multiple facilities.
Results
Real-time data, and the confidence that associates can respond to problems immediately, enables the company to keep inventory low (keeping carrying costs down) even in peak season. Furthermore, GainSeeker Suite has enabled the company to reduce defects by over 94%. This reduction has had far-reaching effects including, for example, reducing the time required to handle customer returns from 40 hours to less than two hours a week.
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