Unstoppable Software Creates Perfect Recipe for Automotive Adhesive Manufacturing Process

A Japanese automotive adhesive manufacturer operating in Dayton, OH, mixes and manufactures sealants and adhesives for clients in the automotive industry such as Toyota and Subaru.

During Summer 2016, company managers were experiencing issues with the company’s ingredient weighing process. During the process, a team of 10 to 15 employees weigh the various liquid ingredients that make up each product – with some products having as many as 20 ingredients – to prepare them for mixing and packaging each week. The weighing teams, which include a staff of about three or four mixing techs on three different shifts and their team leaders, usually work four to five days ahead of the mixing process engineers.

Because the process was managed entirely on paper, managers had no visibility as to which team was working on each product. This prevented them from being able to measure and report on data, productivity, and other metrics. They also were unable to error check the values entered by the weighing staff.

From Weighing Ingredients to Building Finished Goods

Unstoppable Software was tasked with creating the first phase of a new Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that integrated directly with the inventory tracking software they already had in place. The system allows administrators to define the ingredient weighing process and operators to use the defined process to build finished goods. In addition, it also allows near real-time validation of inventory, updating how much of each ingredient is used and providing an alert if the amount of an ingredient has been depleted.

Phase 2 of the system focuses on tracking and guiding the mixing or “processing” function, where ingredients are weighed a second time to check amounts. Integrated with real-time sensors and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), the system includes a touch screen interface that can be used on the warehouse floor. Even while wearing gloves, employees can tap in data and record how much of each raw material has been added to the recipe.

Employees then follow a “recipe” contained in the system that adds each ingredient to automated mixing machines controlled by the PLC. Along the way, samples from each product batch – which can weigh about 20,000 pounds – are collected for quality control, adjustments are made to the ingredients, and the end product is packaged into containers and added to inventory for shipping to customers.

Detailed reporting about individual production batches is now possible, as well as high level summaries about inventory use, throughputs, and supply use.

Expanding Possibilities Beyond Paper

“Our system will ‘talk’ to a PLC sensor control database, providing reports against temperatures and other data coming out of the mixing process,” said Nathan Stuller, President of Unstoppable Software. “The system’s weight checking capability allows them to prevent more wasted batches and re-mixing, provide the ability to generate data about the process, measure efficiency, and make improvements to their business. None of this could have been possible with their paper process.”

Unstoppable’s system has produced results that have impressed the client’s team members from upper management to the teams on the warehouse floor. “We had been using the Unstoppable application for a couple of years when we decided to roll out a new process on paper,” said a Process Engineering Manager. “We had employees working in three distinct user groups ask if we could include the new process in the digital application because they missed all of the features.”

Automotive Adhesive Manufacturer

Receives Continual Enhancements

ERP, Labsoft LIMS, PLC Data

     – Digital system generates data that improves efficiency and increased production

     – Software application guides and verifies operators’ actions on the shop floor

     – Recipe approval process improved turnaround time

     – Reports enabled ingredient waste reduction

     – Detailed auditing for troubleshooting rejected products

     – Improved quality by validating each step of the process