Sintex is a medium-sized, high-tech manufacturer and worldwide supplier of magnetic systems and powder metal components.
Before implementing Blackbird, Sintex was still relying on their operators to manually collect production data that their managers would compile into Excel spreadsheets for analysis - A process that is human-error prone, inefficient, and far too familiar to those of us in the manufacturing industry. They rolled out the Blackbird solution slowly, at first, installing it on 10 of their machines. They needed a solution that could take live data directly from their equipment's PLC and display it in real-time. Blackbird's IoT functionality and flexible connectivity options made it the perfect solution. They have since expanded Blackbird to 30 of their machines.
By simply installing the Blackbird system, Sintex was able to identify which stop causes were most urgent, and as a result, they were able to make quick, fact-based decisions that led to an increase in efficiency of 5% within the first week!
Sintex is responsible for developing components used within highly demanding industries such as automotive, medical, and renewable energy. It has been important for them to optimize production and uncover hidden imperfections, ensuring increased uptime and waste management.
“Just after installing Blackbird, it was an instant eyeopener for us. We didn’t know the system would have such positive effects that quickly... We had many small stops which were hard to see before Blackbird, but we realized these stops had a larger effect on production than the longer stops.” - Casper Levorsen, Production Technician at Sintex A/S
Armed with accurate, actionable data thanks to their newly implemented Blackbird solution, Sintex discovered that, when accumulated, the impact of their shorter stops was actually far greater than the impact of the longer stops they had previously focused on. They shifted their priorities and began addressing shorter stop causes instead, which resulted in a dramatic increase in uptime within a very short amount of time.
“We are currently on a 13-day streak with 92% uptime on one of our lines, which is crazy to think about, considering how it has been in the past.” - Casper Levorsen, Production Technician at Sintex A/S
Sintex now uses Blackbird across every level of their organization. From operators who use Blackbird to register and problem-solve stop causes, to maintenance technicians that need historical data for preventative maintenance measures, to management who rely on Blackbird's data for setting targets and tracking progress.
“We are very glad to be using the system. It adds a lot of value to our problem-solving process. Having the historical data to see how production progresses adds tremendous value and management is also very pleased to be able to track the performance of the equipment.” - Casper Levorsen, Production Technician at Sintex A/S