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ABOUT THE COMPANY

Shorewood Packaging is a division of International Paper, the world’s largest paper and forest products company. Shorewood’s businesses include paper, packaging, and forest products. Headquartered in the United States, International Paper has operations in over 40 countries, and sells its products in more than 120 nations. Shorewood Packaging has 3 plants in Ontario, and is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of premium packaging. Many of the world’s premier consumer products manufacturers depend on Shorewood Packaging’s innovation, advanced technology, world-class quality, and services, to enhance the image of their brands.

BUSINESS GOAL

Shorewood Packaging’s goal was to improve efficiency on the shop floor, and to engage their employees in the process.

THE CHALLENGE

Shorewood was able to identify machines that were ahead or behind in productivity, but the numbers lacked granularity. Shorewood needed to find a way to provide more job-specific information to machine operators, giving them the ability to set efficiency goals and affect change on a real-time basis.

THE SOLUTION

Shorewood Packaging wanted to provide shop employees with information that related their performance to the profit or loss on any given project. Machine operators required job information that detailed estimated make-ready time, job run-time, and the specifications of the quantity of product to be produced. Armed with this information, and the real-time performance information that Plantnode feeds to the marquees at the machine, operators are now finding ways to improve their efficiency. The net result is improved efficiency, and reduced costs.

RESULTS

Improved bottom-line results

At the Shorewood Packaging Midland Avenue facility in Toronto, real-time information is helping to yield world-class results. By implementing the Plantnode solution by Shoplogix, Shorewood Packaging is now able to capture real-time machine productivity information, which is helping improve performance and contributing directly to the bottom-line. Originally, Shorewood Packaging was looking for a device to feed visual LED display marquees connected to their equipment, that would identify machine status to increase efficiency. Shorewood Packaging chose Plantnode based on recommendations from Shoplogix customers, and piloted the solution on four packaging lines. Shorewood realized significant bottom-line results

• Costs per productive hour are 5% below budget.
• Year to date, the facility is performing 3.5 times better than expectations.

Exceeding expectations

Shorewood Packaging realized that the speed and accuracy with which data was acquired, only scratched the surface of Plantnode’s capabilities. Evaluating key performance metrics such as run-time and make-ready time in order to improve its efficiency, was only the beginning. After witnessing the immediate actionable benefits of Plantnode’s implementation, the company decided to incorporate Plantnode on all machines in the Midland plant.

The company translated key performance metrics into dollars to help machine operators understand the impact they could have on the profit or loss of any given job. Now, Shorewood Packaging employees can access information on estimated make-ready time, job run-time, and quantity to run, and then compare these estimates to dynamically updated performance information on their machine and shift. Armed with this information, they can take steps to improve their performance.

Neil Pierobon, Engineering Maintenance Manager at Shorewood Packaging, described the outcome of Plantnode on company performance: “Tying our performance metrics to the bottom line has increased systematic thinking on the shop floor, sponsored a culture of continuous improvement, empowered our employees, and fully engaged them in their work.” Mr. Pierobon added that Shorewood Packaging is investigating the use of Plantnode to help with the maintenance of all the company’s process controls as well, to ensure maximum productivity and product quality.

CONCLUSION: PLANTNODE DELIVERS INTELLIGENT MANAGEMENT OF SHOP FLOOR DATA

Shoplogix Plantnode is an intelligent performance management system designed to increase operational efficiency, improve quality, and drive higher levels of performance in discrete manufacturing environments.

Plantnode has proven effective in improving Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE); predictive and preventive maintenance; and quality initiatives, across all industries. Plantnode leverages existing investments in equipment and business systems, to enable operational visibility and real-time information flow that is fast enough to be actionable, with the accuracy and reliability to facilitate strategic planning and tactical execution.