Schmidt Case History - ITT Bell and Gossett
ITT Bell and Gossett finds a way to cut down months of production time, without cutting down on quality.
In a business where every second counts, continuous process improvement is part of their managerial philosophy. One of the manufacturing groups within this dynamic company, Domestic Products, was able to eliminate production inefficiencies, while enhancing overall quality.
Domestic Products produces boiler feed, condensate return and industrial vacuum units. These high temperature water systems require special 2 foot NPSHR pumps. These packaged units and pumps go through a series of performance and operational tests, before ITT Bell and Gossett will put its name on them. The quality and durability of these products is critical to their effectiveness in HVAC systems in schools, hospitals, and residential buildings.
The Testing Process and Challenge Revealed
Each pump goes through rigorous hydraulic testing before a nameplate is affixed containing all the pump's specifications. Formerly, a test technician dealt with a flood of paperwork for each test unit. "When you consider the number of nameplates we mark, this wound up costing the company months in lost production time. The process was an obvious opportunity for process optimization," said Chief Product Engineer for Domestic Products, Chris Mah. "The nameplates that were produced were not the desired result of something that consumed so much time," continued Mah.
Mah began to take a critical look at their testing procedures and formed a task team to automate the process. The team consisted of Product Engineer, Brian Schnelzer, I.S. Mike McCabe and Mah the project leader. After carefully mapping out the order of the specification data stream and actual test data flow, the team began to review marking companies. When reviewing these companies, ITT Bell & Gossett was looking for a company that would not only provide a product, but also a project partner who felt a vested interest in their success. Schmidt Marking System fulfilled both needs.
Schmidt Marking Systems Solves Their Marking Challenge
In reviewing the internal test procedures, the team found two complications that quickly eliminated vendors. One was the varying size of nameplates containing varying data strings. The other was the masking that covers the nameplate face. This mask protects the data on the nameplate from paint that is applied to the unit before shipment. Schmidt's Styliner® Mark4 was the only system that did not tear the masking.
The Styliner® Mark4 is both flexible and fast. The Styliner uses a computer controlled stylus tip, made of carbide, that acts as a mini jack hammer that can mark a wide variety of parts at varying speeds and character heights. It can also mark logos, serialize part numbers, date codes, and store a large number of files.
Today in the Domestic Products factory, all order specifications are electronically passed to overhead PC monitors at the pump test racks. A technician enters the order information into the Styliner® system and with one keystroke, the test data is captured and automatically analyzed. If approved, the test procedure advances the automated test to the next stage of testing. Once testing is complete a nameplate with a minimum of 18 fields containing test information is produced in seconds. Every nameplate that is marked has characters that are even, straight, of uniform depth, height and clearly visible. In addition the nameplate remains flat, which provides a uniform system for adhesion and a professional appearance.
Aside from the reduction in overall handling time and virtually eliminating marking errors, ITT Bell & Gossett has been able to expand the accessibility of test results. "Using the database and data acquisition cards we are able to greatly simplify the collection and analysis of test data. In addition, we are able to have on line viewable test sheets through out the building," says McCabe explaining some of the benefits of the new nameplate marking system. This enables anyone to readily access a specific order's test results. ITT Bell & Gossett is in the process of making these records available to their sales force through the Internet. This will enable the salesmen to quickly access order history and replacement part information from the field.