Manufacturing and marketing lighting products and system solutions for businesses and consumers worldwide, Osram Sylvania, a Siemens company, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2001. Together with parent company Osram GmbH of Munich, Germany and its affiliates, the lighting manufacturer is the second largest light and materials company in the world, serving customers in more than 140 countries.
Osram Sylvania’s facility in Saint Mary’s, PA is a 450,000 sq ft facility that serves as a warehouse, lamp manufacturing and packing plant for incandescent and halogen light bulbs. Industrial vehicles are used to unload raw materials, feed materials to production cells, take finished goods away from the production line, and finally, load the finished goods.
The Sylvania team, led by distribution center manager Rick Rupp and project engineer Ann Florio, identified several challenges that could be resolved with a Vehicle Management System (VMS). Specifically, Sylvania wanted to evaluate and size its fleet of lift trucks accordingly, while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of the fleet to create manufacturing line improvements and increase operator accountability.
In partnership with Hyster’s Equipco Material Handling Solutions, Sylvania reviewed several VMS solutions and discovered that the PowerFleet™ VMS from I.D. Systems best suited their enhancement needs.
Increasing Material Velocity
Sylvania knew that their lift truck operators often either waited idly on their vehicles for a cue from the production cells, or drove around empty looking for materials to move. The management team wanted to measure and streamline those activities to generate greater material velocity.
Industrial Engineering: Early in the process, Sylvania conducted industrial engineering studies to measure lift truck utilization. They confirmed that utilization was lower than expected, but found the studies to be inconclusive, since they could not track full vehicle activity on every shift on a continuous basis.
Opti-Kan™ from I.D. Systems: A key differentiator of the PowerFleet system is the Opti-Kan module. Short for “optimized kanban,” Opti-Kan is specifically designed to automate and optimize the exchange of materials within a manufacturing environment. Instead of relying on visual cues or searching for materials to move, Opti-Kan enables line operators to generate an electronic signal when they need materials moved. The system automatically communicates with the next available lift truck operator, who then accepts the job and moves the materials as requested. This “just-in-time” request and confirmation process dramatically increases efficiency and line replenishment velocity.
“Other systems could track some vehicle activity, but could not communicate with the drivers,” which is critical to the operation’s efficiency, Rupp noted.
After deploying PowerFleet, Sylvania dramatically increased the efficiency of material replenishment to their production cells.
“After deploying the Opti-Kan module of PowerFleet, drivers are now notified of their next job as they are finishing their current task, which allows Sylvania to maintain an efficient flow of materials,” said Rupp. “This has created a culture change within the operator teams, which means there is even more upside and benefit to be gained.” In addition, managers can now communicate with drivers from their desktop, instead of searching the facility to find them.
Fleet Reduction
Typically, in any warehouse or manufacturing plant, it is difficult (or impossible) to consistently gather data on true industrial truck use. With PowerFleet, management can capture comprehensive, detailed vehicle utilization data over time and make accurate fleet “right-sizing” decisions. In fact, Rupp was able to reduce his fleet by 14%, including reallocating a truck to a different facility.
“Being able to gather enough data so quickly and make a decision to reduce the fleet was definitely an excellent benefit,” Florio noted.
The Sylvania team continuously monitors PowerFleet utilization data via automated industrial reports. As their manufacturing processes change to produce different products, these reports enable the team to easily measure how their industrial vehicle fleet is supporting the process modifications and to proactively make changes.
Safety Improvements
Operator Accountability: The St. Mary’s facility already has an exceptional safety program and track record in place. PowerFleet allows them to further prevent unsafe conditions by creating operator accountability, mandating vehicle safety checklists, and ensuring that only trained drivers can operate vehicles.
Each operator must log in to a vehicle and becomes responsible for the actions that follow. “Previously,” said Rupp, “it was challenging to benchmark operator productivity across three shifts. Now, I can use the data from PowerFleet to identify best practices and the most productive activities. Accountability across the entire fleet has improved.”
Rupp also posts reports so each shift can see how they are performing. This practice has fostered friendly competition and team -building and workgroups are pulling together more than ever before to work as a team.
OSHA Checklists & Access Control: The on-vehicle PowerFleet device prompts each operator to complete a safety checklist; failure to do so disables that vehicle. This not only increases operator accountability, but also alerts management if operators are not completing the process. Since the checklist results are captured and stored electronically, Rupp can now review the checklist answers and operator compliance through an easy, automated report from his desktop.
Safety is a priority for Sylvania, so another PowerFleet benefit is that it is now easy to ensure that vehicles are operated only by trained drivers. Though the facility’s safety record has been excellent, management knows they have now essentially eliminated the risk of an untrained employee operating an industrial truck — which can put their facility, inventory and staff at risk.
Deploying PowerFleet
Florio described the PowerFleet implementation as “really seamless. The hands-on support was great. I.D. Systems was proactive in training and making sure we were ready to train our staff.”
Rupp stated that he is “not a technology guy, but with very little training I was able to easily work with reports and make management decisions based on the data. The system is very user friendly.”
Market Innovators
Sylvania leads the lighting products market through pioneering technology and leveraging innovative solutions.
“We are continually striving to make better products, and to remain competitive we need to make our operations as efficient as possible,” said Florio. “We have never shied away from using the next technology if it makes sound business sense. This system certainly did, and we’re continuing to see results.”
© 2009 I.D. Systems, Inc.