Continuous Improvement as a Management Method
Rinox, based in Terrebonne, QC, was founded in 1997. The company specializes in landscaping, exterior cladding and interior decoration products. Rinox is well committed to innovation and has a long-standing desire to invest heavily in the continuous improvement of its production processes through leading-edge research and development.
During the fall of 2016, Mr. Simon Jean, Plant Manager and his team began the modernization of one of its automation production lines for paving stones. As Rinox constantly sought to optimize production and increase quality while reducing costs, the challenge of Mr. Jean and his team was to continuously supply the paving stone press during the production of orders consisting of products in different proportions entering the mix.
A CUSTOMIZED SOLUTION WITH TRUE BENEFITS
MARCOTTE, who had been closely collaborating with Rinox on implementing the control system, was requested to reflect on possible solutions. The challenge was to develop a specific feature within the process control software to optimize the concrete press usage, which feeds the production line into various concrete types, colors and variant compositions.
The solution that the MARCOTTE engineering team developed was a predictive system that could identify the following type of concrete to be produced to replenish the paving stone press automatically based on the weight calculation of the various concrete mixes consumed during the press feeding process. The so-called Predictive Batching Mode was created!
“Above all, MARCOTTE implemented a solution that enabled us to increase the production capacity of the plant and which reduced the idle time of the machinery attributable to the production of the various concrete entering our various mixes,” says Mr. Simon Jean.
In addition, it is essential to note that during the implementation of the predictive mode feature, Rinox management discovered that the ability to predict raw material requirements ended up allowing for more economical choices in selecting the different raw materials.
Further Surprising
“The predictive mode feature has also improved the consistency of the product with better entrant texture uniformity. This resulted in a significant reduction in wastage of raw materials and cleaning time which was also greatly appreciated”. As an added benefit, not only did the fact that the automated process eliminates any possible human errors, but it also provided operators more time to concentrate on other significant process tasks. Quite a surprising bonus indeed!
