• Efficiently produce the products in your plan
• Adapt quickly when that plan changes

Agile Benefits

Reduce Product Changeover Time

By radically reducing or eliminating part-specific tooling, product changeover times are driven as close to zero as possible. This reduces direct labor costs and machine downtime. Back to top ›

Reduce Work-In-Process

More efficient changeover allows more frequent changeover without impacting throughput. Frequent product changeover allows you to produce in accordance with customer demand, rather than creating large batches. Reducing Work-In-Process (WIP) frees cash that would otherwise be tied up in inventory. This cash flow increase can be put to use more productively in your business. Back to top ›

Free-up Floor Space

One agile system can run a variety of parts that would require many traditional machines, and their associated floor space. Keeping old machines around to run service parts and short-runs is not necessary with Agile Automation. At the end of a product's production cycle, simply store any part specific tooling (if applicable) rather than entire dedicated machines.

Those faster changeovers that reduce WIP also free-up floor space. Less storage is required. Back to top ›

Consistent Quality on Changeover

Stability is the goal of every manufacturing process. The first part of the shift - or after changeover - should be a sellable part with no rework required. By minimizing or eliminating human intervention during changeover, agile systems ensure consistent quality. Back to top ›

Flexible Capacity

When multiple Agile Automation systems are deployed for similar processes, the tooling is fully interchangeable across machines. It's possible to run all machines on the same product or different product on every machine.

This offers tremendous flexibility to respond to wide swings in demand and comes at a fraction of the cost of multiple dedicated machines. Back to top ›

Easy Continuous Improvement

Standardization is the bedrock of kaizen (continuous improvement).

Standard machines with interchangeable tooling, a standard user interface, and common spare parts make continuous improvement easy on an agile system. New tooling ideas can be switched in and out quickly without risking production tools or process settings. Trials and improvements can be conducted during breaks rather than waiting until weekends and holidays. Process settings from kaizen activities are automatically recorded in a recipe management system so that lessons learned aren't lessons lost. Back to top ›

Common Spare Parts

Separating part-specific tooling from machine function turns similar systems into identical systems. Identical systems have identical spare parts. This reduces the hidden cost of maintaining a larger than necessary inventory of spare parts for machines. Back to top ›

Reduced Training Time

Separating part-specific tooling from machine function turns similar systems into identical systems. This standardization means that when your operators and technical team are trained on one machine, they're trained on all machines. Back to top ›

Manage Your Risks

Agile Automation gives you the ability to manage these risks. Think of any cost premium associated with agile features as inexpensive insurance against the risks of:

• Product design change
• Program cancellation or volume decrease
• Under-capacity or poor capacity balance
• Missing a production launch date
• Spending late nights at the plant instead of your kid's school play
• Project failure

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Delay Obsolescence

At the end of a product's lifecycle, Agile Automation's modular design lends itself to reconfiguration for new production demands. Whether the end of production comes according to plan or otherwise, agile systems have value that is not lost, hopelessly entangled in a part-specific design. Back to top ›

Reduce Product Launch Cost

Product launches represent a larger percentage of product lifecycle costs as production volumes shrink. In general, a launch on agile equipment involves simple tooling and program changes. Best practices and production parameters from other products can be used as starting points. The result is:

• Minimal cost and lead time for fixed tooling purchase
• Reduced process equipment debug time and development risk
• Simplified ISO / PPAP documentation by recycling content from previous programs

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Reduced Cost for New Business

Agile Automation allows you to prepare for new jobs with a small tooling investment as opposed to entirely new machinery. This lets you quickly meet startup capacity requirements on existing Agile Automation. New machinery is added only as production increases. Agile Automation lends both a tooling cost savings and a capital investment savings for new business. Back to top ›

Tighten Customer Relationships

Turn your customers into raving fans by responding easily and quickly to product changes, prototype requests, and emergency orders. This responsiveness gives you a distinctive edge.

Agile Automation helps to cement existing customer relationships in other ways:

• It offers product design flexibility that will delight your customer.
• The process of designing an agile system involves predicting likely variations in future production. You will have a reason to discuss future product pipeline with your customer. This process deepens your involvement with your customer.
• You need only to build prototype tooling to allow actual production equipment to be used for Product R&D under shop floor conditions. This capability eliminates surprises during product launch.

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Win New Business

What story do you have to tell prospective customers? What differentiates your manufacturing capabilities from your competitors? When you can walk your prospective customers through your plant and demonstrate your manufacturing agility, they will take notice. With Agile Automation, your cost structure allows you to profitably produce the lower volume products that your less enlightened competitors can't touch. And because your tooling costs are minimal, simple, and well understood, you can respond quickly to customer pricing requests and compressed product launch schedules.

When your competitors are not agile, they can't respond in this way. Your company is the one that wins the new business. Back to top ›