Humble signal towers help put the 'lean' in manufacturing

摘要

Marquardt has made the leap to 'lean manufacturing' with a simple trick. The switching systems specialist has converted every signal tower deployed on machines at its Rietheim-Weilheim plant in south west Germany into a machine data collection and monitoring system. The novel 'call-and-report' system lays the foundation for daily production monitoring as part of the shopfloor management system, creating maximum operational transparency. And as Stefan Wetzel, team leader of prototype/pilot production at Marquardt, explains: "It was so simple; our own electricians got the data collection and monitoring system up and running within a very short time."