Examples

WD System at the Sanda Plant

Sanda Plant

The Sanda Plant is a PATLITE manufacturing plant located in Hyogo prefecture, Japan.
About 8,000 different part numbers are manufactured at this plant, totaling to an annual production of roughly 450,000 units.
340 different lot setups occur each day, and average 5.6 units per lot.

Reducing Productivity Losses at Our Assembly Lines
WD Basic Solutions

Clarify the goal and attain workplace visibility.

Simple visualization of worker's "at work area" and "not at work area" statuses.

Our Goal
That workers do not leave the work area unless needed.
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Our Issue
It was hard to track when and why each worker leaves their work area, making it difficult to assess productivity loss.
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Steps Taken for Improvement
1Start with small changes to avoid major redos if changes are not effective.
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2Start by analyzing simple data first to see where improvements can be made.
Perform a factor analysis of "not at work area" statuses
Brainstorm solutions for short-term improvements

3Make periodic assessments.

Calculate the duration and number of times a worker leaves their work area.

Measure the effectiveness of changes made and maintain these positive outcomes.

Determine the next steps for further improvement.

Aimed for maximum improvement with minimum investment.

Expanded effective methods horizontally within our system.

Horizontal expansion to other production lines
Horizontal expansion to our overseas facility in Indonesia

Reducing Productivity Losses at Our Assembly Lines
Example of add-on solution

By combining the WD Series, monitoring cameras, and 3rd party software, we built a system that automatically tracks when workers step away from their work area.

This automatic system has saved us a great amount of time and labor that was previously used for data collection and analysis.

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Feedback from customers who visited the Sanda Plant

With IoT being such a vast concept, we were struggling to visualize how it can be used for improvement at our worksite.
We were collecting PLC data, but were not able to use the information effectively. Furthermore, we did not have a proper system to manage work processes of our employees.
After seeing how the WD System was used at the Sanda Plant, we immediately knew that this would be the perfect solution for our facility.

Although we knew where we needed to improve within our processes, we were hesitant to implement the changes due to the risks and costs.
When visiting the Sanda Plant, we learned that we need to start small instead of changing everything at once.

After our first visit to the Sanda Plant, we decided to implement the WD System at our own facility. Since then, we have seen drastic improvements in our work efficiency.
At our second visit to the plant, we noticed that additional Kaizen steps were being taken, and further improvements were made to their monitoring system. Their system which combines the WD Series and cameras is simple yet very effective.
The continued improvements to the monitoring system at the Sanda Plant was encouraging, and we would like to expand our use of the WD Series to our overseas facilities.

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