Situation
Quality manager for a consumer goods packaging company. Federal regulation strictly requires long-term stability of the consumer product, which hinges on maintaining accurate product formulation. Documentation of the process data is vital to meeting federal regulations in the event of a recall.
Critical issue
The quality manager faced the situation of having no future means for ensuring quality data to support federal regulations.
Reasons
Recent automation of the ingredient mixing process dramatically increased first pass yield, line efficiency (up-time), and throughput. However, it created a new challenge for the quality manager who would no longer have the meticulous records the inspector manually recorded.
Vision
The quality team envisioned software that would automatically collect data from the PLCs that controlled each of the three flow meters that fed ingredients into the mix. The data would provide accurate inspection documentation to satisfy federal regulators in the event of a product recall. They also needed documentation that would be easily identifiable and retrievable at any time in the future.
Hertzler Systems provided
GainSeeker Suite real time SPC data collection turned detailed PLC data into actionable intelligence for each fill cycle. Now key stakeholders get real-time alarms if there are changes in the ingredient mix, giving engineers time to proactively prevent problems.
Results
“Having automated real-time data gives us time to respond to changes before they become major problems,” says the quality manager. “And in preventative maintenance, we have knowledge that can help us plan for repairs before wear and tear causes the line to go down. … I have the data the matters over time. GainSeeker gives us all kinds of clues.”
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