Lean Production Capacity Report

Noble Fire Production Capacity
Report
Prepared by
Julian Kalac, P.Eng
10/9/2012

of 11 Noble Fire Capacity Report 9 October 2012
To: Eric St-Amant, Kevin Paterson
C.C.: Kirk Daize
From: Julian Kalac, P.Eng License #90505462
Date: October 6, 2012
Re: Noble Fire Production Capacity
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this report is to provide an initial assessment of the current Production
Capacity at Noble Fire, identify process bottlenecks, and develop a proposed plan to
increase Production Capacity.
This report contains detailed process descriptions, machine limitations, pictures, current
capacity and detailed recommendations for increased capacity.
REFRENCED STANDARDS:
 Ontario Building Code
 National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
 National Standard for Sprinkler System Design (FC 403 )
The preliminary capacity assessment is based on observations from a 1 ½ day visit on
October 4th
& 5th
.
For clarification purposes, NO COSTS were provided nor used in this report on: Material &
Labour Costs/unit, Production/Sales Gross Margins, Machine Parts & Downtime costs
Since no Production KPI was available, and current capacity is not known, the capacity
assessment is based on WELDED “OUTLETS/Hr” & % Machine Utilization.
Overview:
Noble Fire, known as Don Park Fire, is a division of Noble that produces Fire Sprinkler
Systems for both residential and commercial industries as per the NFPA and Ontario
Building Code standards
Noble Fire has a VERY UNIQUE production process. Initially looking from the outside the
operation may appear to be simple and straight forward, but the actual production
complexity is hidden deep inside the machines & processes.
The plant has approximately 35,000 ft², which includes production, offices, warehouse
and pipe racks/storage (see Layout in Appendix).

There are 8 skilled fabricator/welders & 1 foreman. There are no dedicated Maintenance
staff on site. The fabricators do their own maintenance and repairs.
The foreman Kirk is very experienced, knowledgeable and mechanically skilled. He “wears
many different hats”, i.e. reviews customer drawings, provides quotes on labour costs,
coordinates workloads, deals with customer calls/complaints/inquiries, orders material.
One thing that would make his job a little easier is for him to have a computer with a
hard-drive, printer and photocopier on the production floor instead in the front office.
Production Processes
There are 4 processes involved in completing a finished pipe:
1. Pipe cutting
2. Plasma Profile Burning
3. Circular welding (outlet onto pipe)
4. Pipe Threading
THERE ARE 3 BURN/WELD MACHINES:
 WB#1--Whirly-Bird style circular welder (—WITHOUT CUTTER)
 WB#2 --Whirly-Bird style circular welders (–WITH A DEDICATED CUTTER)
 Nogeo machine (1 1/4” to 3”)
Machine Design issues:
All 3 Machines are outdated in design and require a great deal of maintenance and
operator involvement to make them run. They are very much operator dependent, and
not everyone can operate each machine. For example the Nogeo Machine can only be
operated by either Sergey or Lead Hand Anthony. Each Machine is unique in it’s
limitations and capacity.
WB#1
WB#2
NOGEO M/C

The major Machine and Process issues are:
1. Whirlybird M/C #1 (6 years old) has a Production Capacity of 14-16 outlets/hr
and is only 60% Utilized in Run Time and 40% with various downtime issues
a) Does NOT HAVE a CUTTER AT THE END, therefore requires Non-Value
Add activity of loading pipes onto manual cart, pushing the cart to the
Threader/Cutter machine ( up to 130ft distance) and back and unload pipes.
Estimated= 1-2 Hrs. downtime/shift.
b) By adding 2 additional pipe cutters to the plant, would improve machine
utilization by min. 15%
c) Material handling (loading/unloading) of pipes is done manually with carts
and is very labour intensive and time consuming.
d) Welding wire feed issues, causing misfeeds/jams and machine downtime.
(1hr/shift)
e) Both WHIRLY-BIRD machine(s) DO NOT have programming capability
therefore require the operator to manually to measure each pipe length,
outlet location/spacing, which are done with a tape measurer while the
machine is down (2 hr/day). Note: The tolerances on sprinkler head outlets
are designed within 1/32” in total variation per system (500+ pipe lines)
WB#1
WB#1 NO CUTTER
WB#2

2. Whirlybird M/C #2 has a Machine Capacity of 16 Outlet/hr
a. Has the same issues as WB# 1 listed above, except for the wire feed issue
b. On top of that WB# 2 has machine alignment issues between the Burning & Welding
cycles and therefore has to work backwards and use welding as the main reference
and work backwards to set the burning position.
c. This is currently being compensated with the skill and experience of the main
operator, Dimitri, who is a very skilled MIG/TIG/GAS welder originally from Romania,
where the experience level is much higher than here
3. Nogeo Automated Machine has a Machine Capacity of 16 outlets/hr.
a) I personally timed the machine cycle time without interruption to be 3.49 min
b) The Machine Cycle time is directly related to the lack of process capability and
reliability. This machine needs major maintenance & repair to keep running
c) This machine is run only by 1 operator, (Sergey) who is the most experienced
welder. He has modified, repaired & kept this machine running with no spare parts.
d) Sergey has to manually center the welding adapter every single cycle prior to
the weld cycle. This is due to the lack of machine capability to adjust for different
outlets sizes and causes over 30% of the machine downtime.
e) This could easily be rectified by using a STANDARDIZED AISI 1020 UN-ILET
(see picture below)
f) Frequent Machine breakdowns are a major cause of the machine
downtime.
g) There are no spare parts and the manufacturer does not carry any of the parts
from this outdated model. This causes over 50% of major downtime and lost of
productivity (see pictures below and in appendix).
WB# 1 FRONT VIEW
Pipe Handling cartPlasma Burner

THREADER PROBLEMS:
1. Oster threader (>30 years) only threads up to 2” pipes
2. Dies keep breaking causing downtime (40% downtime) YTD replaced over 10 sets
3. The material used to make the dies are only case hardened and not made out of
HSS—High Speed Steel (M-2) which is the proper tool steel for this application
4. Set-Up time on 1” – 2” Threader takes min 15min/set-up. (3-4 set-ups/day=
1hr M/C downtime)
Manually centering the weld
adapter prior to welding
AISI 1020 STD OUTLET
One of the repairs Sergey was showing me
he used rope to hold the weld unit together!
Problems due to lack of standardized outlets SOLUTION

CURRENT PRODUCTION CAPABILITY AND SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
Current Fire Capacity on the 3 burn/weld machines
M/C Pcs/Hr Daily Capacity Weekly Capacity
Monthly
capacity
Annual Capacity
WB #1 15 112.5 562.5 2250 27000
WB #2 16 120 600 2400 28800
NOGEO M/C 17 128 638 2550 30600
TOTAL CAPACITY 48 360 1800 7200 86400
AFTER IMPROVMENETS
1-ADDING 2 CUTTERS + 2 THREADER + IMPROVING WB #1 WIRE FEED (estimated cost < $15,000)
2-Replace all outlets with 1 STANDARD AISI 1020 UNI-LET 3/4" OUTLET
M/C Pcs/Hr Daily Capacity Weekly Capacity
Monthly
capacity
Annual Capacity
WB #1 20 150 750 3000 36000
WB #2 21 157.5 788 3150 37800
NOGEO M/C 23 172.5 863 3450 41400
TOTAL CAPACITY 64 480 2400 9600 115200
Productivity Improvement= 25.0%
SUGGESTED IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENTS:
1. Add 2 PIPE CUTTERS (2”), for WB#1 and Main area. Estimated Cost=$ 2,000
2. Add 1 ROTHENBERGER 4” THREADER with automatic die heads (Max. $10,000)
3. IMPLEMENT AISI 1020 STANDARD UNI-LET outlet which will standardize all
welded outlets and significantly reduce machine downtime, especially on the
complex NOGEO.
4. Repair WB#1 WIRE FEED ISSUE. I have provided a wire feed troubleshooting
guide/checklist to Fernando, WB#1 operator.
5. Implement a PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE PLAN for the NOGEO machine
with a recommended SPARE PARTS list from the manufacturer in order to reduce
downtime
TOTAL NEW EQUIPMENT COST = $15,000
Note: These are only estimated improvements which need to be validated

FURTHER OPTIONS
DEPENDING ON THE CONFIDENCE LEVEL OF FUTURE SALES
1. HIRE 2ND
SHIFT
Because of the equipment issues & limitations, I do not believe adding a 2nd
shift
would be a feasible option due to the frequent machine breakdowns, design
limitations, lack of process/machine capability & unique operator dependency.
Hiring & training new people on equipment which are NOT capable, have many
limitations, breakdowns and unreliable will only cause more issues and lost of
productivity.
These machines are not capable of mass production, and would need to retrofitted
to make them suitable for mass production.
2. PURCHASE NEW MACHINE(S):
This option would only be feasible if there were sufficient sales for the next 5-6
years in order to amortize the capital costs. The question then becomes the
confidence level in the projected future sales.
I strongly suggest to look into improving the current Whirly-Bird machine issues
listed above before purchasing another new machine with the same issues.
3. REPLACE NOGEO WELD UNIT WITH CYPRESS WHIRLYBIRD CW-5
If the Production Capacity after the IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENTS listed above is still
not sufficient, then this would be the most feasible and most effective option.
Reason: in order to maximize the utilization of the NOGEO machine
The CW-5 model comes with programming capability to allow for individual and
combined operations.
By investing in this replacement weld unit, the production capacity can increase by
over 800% and allow capability for mass production.
The cost of 1 of these units needs to be verified, but I have found a used on for
$29,000 plus $3000 for carriage and set-up adapter. See the specifications and
pictures in the APPENDIX.
TOTAL COST USED UNIT = $33,000

CYPRESS CW-5 CIRCULAR WELDERS
CAPACITY ANALYSIS COMPARISON (CW-5 vs NOGEO)
CURRENT NOGEO
M/C
Individual Operation Combined Operations Combined Operations
Cycle Time (Seconds) Cycle Time (Seconds) Cycle Time (Seconds)
Burn Cut 10 5 30
Weld Time 20 10 150
Loading/Unloading 20 10 10
Chuck Travel Time 10 5 39
Total M/C Cycle Time (Seconds) 60 30 229
Pipes/Min 1 2 0.26
Pipes/Hr 60 120 15.7
Total Available Time/Shift 8.5 8.5 8.5
Breaks & Lunches 1 1 1
RUN TIME 7.5 7.5 7.5
Max Pipes/Shift (8.5 Hrs) 510 1020 117.9
Maintenance Time/Downtime 1.0 1.0 2.0
RUN TIME 7.5 7.5 6.5
EXPECTED PIPES/SHIFT 450 900 102.2
Note:
The approximate time for a cut is 6-10 seconds, depending upon diameter and thickness.
The approximate time for a weld is 15-20 seconds
CYPRESS CIRCULAR WELDER CW-5
New Machine Utilization requires relieving for break and lunches

CONCLUSION
Based on the overall situation and current production capacity I recommend the
immediate suggestions be implemented right away.
An estimated 24% increased productivity is well worth the $15,000 cost.
I also strongly suggest a Preventative Maintenance Plan for the NOGEO
machine with SPARE PARTS ON HAND to reduce machine downtime.
I also suggest the manufacturer, NOGEO, come in and do an overall assessment of
the machine capability and to evaluate the proposed option of replacing the welding
unit with a more sophisticated as listed above or similar.
I have reviewed this report with Kirk, the plant foreman and he is in agreement
with the recommendations and suggested improvements.
If needed I can be of assistance to discuss the proposal with NOGEO
I also suggest Production to begin tracking & reporting machine downtime and
causes in order to accurately determine the machine efficiency.
I would like to thank Kirk and his group for their assistance during the visit.
Sincerely,
Julian Kalac, P.Eng.

Lean Production Capacity Report

More Related Content

What's hot

Similar to Lean Production Capacity Report

More from Julian Kalac P.Eng

Recently uploaded

Lean Production Capacity Report