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An Enterprise Automotive Supplier needed to rapidly increase production throughput to keep up with spiking pandemic-fueled demand. They turned to Invisible AI to identify areas for improvement.
Industry Background:
In recent years, manufacturing has faced critical challenges. From increased demand and supply chain shortages brought by the pandemic, to the growing need to invest in R&D for more energy-efficient and sustainable processes, to the labor shortages experienced by many plants, the need for innovative technologies is greater than ever.
As the pandemic fueled a surge in demand for automobiles, an Enterprise Automotive Supplier urgently needed to boost their throughput from 320 to 520 parts per shift to fulfill new orders. However, their shifts consistently fell short. The Supplier knew there were bottlenecks in the production line preventing them from meeting their target TAKT time, but struggled to identify exactly where the repeated interruptions were occurring.
The company sought innovative solutions to address the productivity gap while maintaining the quality their brand was known for in the market. They selected Invisible AI as their innovation partner of choice.
Invisible AI (IAI) partnered with the Automotive Supplier to deploy several proprietary AI edge devices across key production lines. IAI created a digital twin of the production process and captured real-time metrics around bottlenecks and performance issues. The project team identified several areas of low performance, including:
• Bottleneck by Process: One operator’s pace was much slower compared to operators on the same station from other shifts. This operator was coached by Invisible AI - shown video playback of ideal ideal processes to improve his speed.
• Bottleneck by Design: One particular station was overloaded with work content, and the cycle time left very little room to hit target cycle time. Only highly specialized operators were able to run this station. IAI recommended reducing the autocycle time for a torque gun on this station (within allowable limits) to accommodate for faults so that any operator could run the station.
• Bottleneck by Design: Some materials were placed far away from operators, requiring excessive walking. Materials were moved to be closer at the point of use, saving 1-2 seconds every cycle.
With this understanding, Invisible AI collaborated closely with the production floor team to successfully implement the new changes.
Within four hours of collaborative effort to implement the modified workflow, the production line was able to meet the target TAKT time to achieve the desired output of 520 parts per shift. After this project’s immediate success, the Automotive Supplier decided to implement Invisible AI’s solution across the entire plant.
The fact that Invisible AI was able to help us meet our target TAKT time within 4 hours of deployment is truly remarkable. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I am excited to continue working with the team to make our processes more efficient.
Advanced Technology Engineer
Enterprise Automotive Supplier
