Heavy Vehicle
Manufacturing
smart factory in action
repair and rework
Powerful location and reporting functionality in Ubisense Smart Factory allowed an
internationally renowned tractor manufacturer to immediately locate assets in its rework area
and significantly reduce its WIP inventory.
the challenge
To quickly and efficiently locate expensive assets in a very large rework area so that WIP inventory could be minimized.
At a tractor plant there can be a high volume of expensive heavy vehicles requiring rework at any given time. This international tractor
manufacturer has a very large holding area for the vehicles waiting to be worked on in one of its repair bays, and each time a bay
becomes available a worker must to go and fetch the next tractor to be fixed. The large size of the holding area meant that once vehicles
were in rework it was extremely difficult and time consuming to locate them – commonly involving a physical search of multiple yards.
§§ The manufacturers’ rework area was costing it heavily in terms of wasted man-hours spent searching for vehicles, and resources
standing idle in the repair bays while they waited for the next tractor to be fetched
§§ The manufacturer had set up additional repair bays to try to improve throughput during heavy production times, a wasted capital
expense due to the sub-optimal throughput caused by the inability to locate tractors in its rework yard
§§ The expensive WIP inventory that was amassing in rework was negatively affecting the manufacturers’ cash flow, as its vital revenue
was tied-up in the unshipped vehicles
the smart factory solution
Ubisense Smart Factory enabled precise, real-time location of vehicles in rework, completely eliminating wasted search time.
By tagging each vehicle, the Smart Factory system delivered powerful real-time searching capabilities so that the tractor makers’
personnel knew the exact location and status of every product and critical production asset in rework. They could easily find specific
objects or vehicles on a map, so there was no longer a need to search for the assets required to achieve their current objectives.
the results
1§§ The manufacturer saved approximately 10 hours of worker time per week, and optimized its resource allocation to
reduce repair bay overheads
2
§§ Throughput in rework significantly increased, releasing the revenue trapped in the WIP inventory
3
§§ The working environment at the plant substantially improved, and the company’s management team was able to
focus on higher value problems
www.ubisense.net/en/products/smart-factory
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