For years Feyen Zylstra has served as a dedicated Industrial Tech partner for a local automotive part manufacturer providing controls, automation, and IIoT solutions to drive value and improve efficiency on their plant floor.

Modular Line Concept

Our team helped transition the automotive parts manufacturers' equipment from a traditional manufacturing model to a modular line concept. With a traditional manufacturing model, a machine builds a specific part, thereby classifying the machine useless when the part changes or becomes obsolete. In a Modular Line concept, the machine is programmed to build a variety of different parts, thus extending its ability and machine life.

Our team implemented the concept and process in the controls of the equipment designed by an outside firm and the customer. The process consists of 22 lines, six weld stations, and leak, gauge, and assembly stations. Each line’s ability to run over 32 parts reduces facility space and increases scheduling efficiencies.

IIoT Solution

In order to provide visibility and streamline their manufacturing processes, our team recommended our customer adopt and implement Ignition, Inductive Automation's IIoT Application, on their plant floor. Using Ignition, our team helped implement an Automated Scrap Code System and Automated Route Tag System. These systems transform manual processes to automatic systems thereby saving time and money by eliminating tedious manual data entry and minimizing errors. Within both of these systems, information is logged within our customer's ERP database and the correct parties are automatically alerted in the case of an issue.

Since project completion, our team has served in a continuous consulting and supporting role, assisting our customer's inhouse engineering team as they utilize Ignition across their plant floor. Among other applications, our team has helped the customer use Ignition for basic machine monitoring, dashboard reporting, downtime monitoring, technician and maintenance tracking, and production counts.