Variant Management

Challenge:

Now a days the products are becoming customized , it leads to increase in no. of variants. Manufacturers have to manage assembly lines , features for customized products which is resulting in increased errors, delays in meeting customer requests and extensive rework. This all is related to Variant Management in assembly line.

Every manufacturing unit manages variants, it can be with the help of Excel Sheets or Manually. It result in long working hours, chances of errors are more, variant may get interchange with other design which in result hampers the quality of the final product. Thus, arranging multiple variants on single assembly line is becoming a challenge.

Solution:

We offered our Variant Management Solution , through which the software will enable to keep the check on production with its correct components. This is done when barcode is scanned and matched with the RFID tag. In this the comparison is made via Plan v/s Actual.

Why Variant Management?

To preside over the power of reuse, reduce errors and delays and increase productivity.

In this manufacturers need to define Bill of material of a component and manage the variable in one structure rather than having individual structure. Reckers Mechatronics has designed the software, named VM Tool , which enables one to save the variants in one structure called ‘LlBRARY’ which can save upto 5000 metrics.

Here is the dashboard of Variant Management:

Advantages for the same are as follows:

Plan vs Actual can be easily checked and verified.

2. It helps to reduce the Rework.

Options for each BOM is ready with the operator and can be checked also with the help of Tool.

Implementation

Firstly the data is saved in the ‘Library’ , which is build during development. It consist of the specification as per the design of the product. The Library fetches the data either through ERP or manually prepared reports.

There are various steps in implementation of VMS (Variant Management Software ). The steps are as follows:

Order in a sequence.

2. Appropriate Information to concerned Individual.

3. Comparing Plan v/s Actual.

ERP is fed with the production plan, which is then fetched in Library , which is build during development of VM Tool. When the component comes on assembly line , the signal is transmitted to VM Tool , the matrics related to the product comes on the screen, if it qualifies then marked as OK. Plan vs Actual is checked.

The barcode is placed on each component of the machine which is scanned and matched with the pre defined specification. ( present in the Library)

The RFID tag is placed on each fixture which carries the unique identifier is related to the machine.

Component assembly takes place on one assembly line and engine assembly takes place on another assembly line. Further, both the components are combined to form a final desired product, which is on each stage qualified with Plan v/s Actual.

ROI

The benefit of Variant Management system is to stop the Rework procedure which was time and cost consuming. Generally , customization can no longer be transferred to the customer, therefore the impetus of these losses comes on manufacturer.