8 February 2010

John Cotton Group selected Lighthouse Systems Shopfloor-Online to replace its legacy system and implement a new platform for manufacturing operations.

John Cotton Group is a leading supplier of duvets and pillows to a wide range of retail outlets. It prides itself on a smooth and efficient production line that delivers high quality products in large numbers. The plant at Mirfield, UK, is able to produce as many as 125,000 duvets and 290,000 pillows each week. With many different customers to supply there is a considerable range of product variation to cater for, such as different raw materials, sizes, weights and packing specifications. Most orders are relatively short runs and issued with little notice as the retail sector seeks to minimise stock in the supply chain.

John Cotton Group have relied on computer systems to support scheduling, material requisitioning, shop floor data collection and the provision of key reports to operations and management in order to meet the demands of production for many years. Originally John Cotton Group developed a purpose built manufacturing system, written in COBOL. Although this worked well for many years, it became increasingly difficult to support and maintain. What was once a great facilitator that streamlined manufacturing operations became a millstone: impossible to move forward with new technologies, fragile, and a growing risk to the business with significant lost time on the occasions when it failed. The company had to change, it knew it didn’t want another bespoke system, but as a comprehensive user of shop floor systems it also didn’t want to compromise the fit of the system to the company’s needs.

“The decision was purely down to risk,” says Chris Earl, group IT manager for John Cotton “We were having more problems with the old bespoke system and with only one person supporting it there was huge potential for a major problem that could affect production performance. The support gap had to be filled or we needed a whole new approach.”

We chose to work with Lighthouse Systems because they started at the shop floor and wanted to develop the new system to fit the needs of the operators first and foremost

Chris Earl , John Cotton Group  The requirement was, therefore, for a system that would deliver everything that the legacy software had done but using an off-the-shelf software package that would be easier and cheaper to support and maintain. The key requirements were:
• Scheduling: Automatically import the weekly production schedule and allow the scheduler to experiment with different options such as switching jobs between lines, adding new jobs, and changing the running sequence, to manipulate the schedule to meet the changing demands from customers
• Material requisitions: Communicate to stores to prepare materials to support the production plan.
• Job set up: Provide operators with the information they need when changing product runs, like bills of materials, key specifications, packing specifications and any special instructions from the scheduler
• Automatic data capture: Collect product counts and downtime events directly from the PLCs controlling the lines, saving operator time
• Quality checks: Prompt operators to do regular quality checks and ensure the correct specifications are being applied
• Spoilage: Allow operators to record any spoilage by reason at the end of each production run
• Bar code ticket printing: Finished product is packed into bags and then onto pallets. Bags and pallets are identified with serialised bar-coded labels that must be printed in the required format on a printer by the line
• Upload to SAP: Automatically upload the production and spoilage figures at the end of a production run
• Reporting: Make available a wide range of operational reports to support engineering, management and finance

Having examined the various systems available, Shopfloor-Online by Lighthouse Systems was the only one capable of meeting the requirements and had the flexibility to match the business processes.

Having identified that the bespoke system was becoming a critical business risk, the management agreed that a new solution needed to be found. It had to be a fully supported off-the-shelf product with minimal customisation, yet flexible enough to meet the specific needs of the business. It had to interface to existing machines and systems – in this case SAP and a number of custom business databases. Ideally it would offer the opportunity to expand functionality in future and allow John Cotton to consolidate manufacturing applications. Cost was also a consideration. Chris Earl was tasked with finding the alternative

“We chose to work with Lighthouse Systems because they started at the shop floor and wanted to develop the new system to fit the needs of the operators first and foremost," says Earl. “They were conscious of the fact that they needed to sell the system to the people that would be using it rather than selling it at board level and then dictating to the manufacturing users.

The new software was chosen in April 2008, implementation started shortly afterwards and took an iterative approach running alongside the current system. It uses Microsoft SQL Server database with IIS hosting the Web application and users accessing the system through Internet Explorer. It also runs on Windows Server.

Within a few weeks a pilot was up and running, taking feeds from the machines and presenting screens to visualise production. Interfaces were developed and proven and users were involved in making refinements to screens and reports. The go-live was always planned after the annual busy period and this gave plenty of time to prepare the plant, people and processes.

The final switch over, in February 2009, went very smoothly. In fact, this approach meant that there was no need to parallel run both systems during change over, as all parties had confidence that the new system was ready and fit for purpose.

John Cotton Group had not thought of their legacy system as an MES since it pre-dated that concept, but when trying to replace it, MES was the obvious answer. With Shopfloor-Online, John Cotton Group had been able to select the modules they needed to meet the requirements, like downloading works orders for tactical scheduling, communicating set up instructions, capturing downtime events and production, recording spoilage, collecting quality measurements, uploading production figures to SAP, and providing all the reports required by all users from operators, to managers and customers. The modules not immediately used in Shopfloor-Online provide opportunities for John Cotton Group to expand the MES scope in future.

The new Web-based system is very graphical, operator dash-boards were created to provide operators the information they need to help them visualise production performance at a glance. This was a big step forward from the text based legacy system.

“Although there were a lot of changes being made, the implementation went very smoothly with only a few teething problems that were dealt with quickly and effectively by Lighthouse,” says Earl. “In fact, operators didn’t feel as big an impact as we expected and there was no effect on production whatsoever. The feedback has all been good from the shop floor and I think the fact that the operators were a big part of the implementation project from the start has paid off in a huge way.

“All nine lines are using Shopfloor-Online, it is the backbone of executing work on the shop floor. The system is being used by operators, supervisors, managers, support staff like the scheduler and engineering, and also finance. Aside from the obvious advantage that we now have a supported mainstream system that runs on modern technical infrastructure, we also have additional benefits. The main one is the increased visibility and ease of access to all production data in one place. Whereas before, we had reached the end of the road, now we are only just beginning to explore the future potential that Shopfloor- Online gives us.”

Moving forward, John Cotton Group intends to develop the Shopfloor-Online Maintenance Module to support better maintenance planning to minimise the impact on production schedules.

“Something that we want to be able to do is to have better visibility of the product weights for quality managers, the production director and customers,” adds Earl. “At the moment this information comes from in-line check-weighers and is stored on a standalone system. We plan to bring this into Shopfloor- Online, removing another legacy application, so that we can chart the weights recorded after each production run and analyse the readings for trending.”

Due to the success of the initial implementation John Cotton Group has plans to extend the system to the company’s non-woven’s division and Earl is sure that the existing project will be developed to use a great deal more of the functionality available within the current system.

“We are looking at ways of improving the plant’s performance and Shopfloor-Online will play a central role in helping us to achieve greater efficiencies,” concludes Earl. “We have been very impressed with the way Lighthouse has dealt with the project to date and we have established an easy relationship that is based on straight talking and honesty. We will continue to develop the system to gain ever more benefits with the help of our shop floor operators and the Lighthouse team.”

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