Lean Cycle Counting with the Latest Scales - METTLER TOLEDO

Lean Cycle Counting with the Latest Scales

Mobile counting

During the yearly cycle-counting process, the employees at SMC previously walked more than 3,500 miles throughout the manufacturing facility. With the mobile weighing solution from METTLER TOLEDO this distance has been reduced by 98 percent.

Imagine walking the length of the United States—from coast to coast. A group of about 12 employees at SMC’s Noblesville, Indiana site did just that. They walk more than 3,500 miles each year throughout the manufacturing facility during its cycle-counting process. That was before the Japan-based manufacturer of pneumatic and electric automation equipment turned to METTLER TOLEDO to integrate a mobile weighing station that would increase efficiency and save the company money.

With all of its scales located in one central area near the shipping and receiving dock, employees collected parts from the factory and brought them to the scale area for weighing and then walked them back.

“We had miles and miles of walking,” says Jason Ricketts, SMC manufacturing engineer. “So we looked to METTLER TOLEDO for a more efficient way to do this process.” The solution included using mobile scale stations and laptops with wireless Internet access so that employees could bring the scales to where they needed to weigh, instead of walking the product to the scale to be weighed. “We gained a ton of efficiency this way,” Ricketts says.

This simple process change, implemented with METTLER TOLEDO’s help, represents a major savings in labor costs. Now the team walks less than 37 miles a year, instead of 3,500 during the cycle-counting process. “If the average person walks about 2 miles per hour, before that was 1,778 hours walking per year; now it’s just 18 hours! That was non-value-added waste,” says Ricketts.

In addition to the increased efficiency, Ricketts says SMC has seen greater accuracy in its cycle-counting process as a result of the new mobile-weighing station. “If the computer says there are parts there, we know there are,” he says. The only downside of this new process with METTLER TOLEDO technology is that employees are going to need to find another way to get their exercise.

The new ICS685 counting scale helps manufacturers like SMC not only deliver error free, high-quality products, but also to accurately take stock. For operators, the ICS685 simplifies fundamental tasks. By analyzing weighing trends, production managers can tighten margins without sacrificing product quality.

Learn more about the benefits of counting solutions from METTLER TOLEDO: