Norandal has expanded its relationship with Attunity to leverage Attunity InFocus for a continuous focus on quality and innovation.
Norandal USA Inc. is a leading manufacturer of rolled aluminum foil and light gauge sheet products for consumer and industrial markets. In line with its focus on driving continuous quality improvements throughout its organization, Norandal wanted to gain greater visibility into key casting performance metrics through more timely and actionable information. Implementing Attunity InFocus, Norandal is able to identify potential areas for quality improvements, and take action in a much more timely manner.
Challenge
- Need for greater visibility into key casting performance metrics
- Desire to identify casting issues and opportunities in a more timely and accurate manner
- Affirmation that plant-wide projects were focused on the right areas
- Need for more timely manufacturing performance metrics
- Needed more timely and actionable information to apply six sigma quality approaches to casting
Solution
- Attunity InFocus to monitor, analyze and act on opportunities
Benefits
- More effective prioritizing of projects and alignment of engineering resources on key business issues
- More timely and actionable information – working with intraday information
- Improved inventory management
- Improved ability to review and revise the cost structure of key products
- Increased productivity of key employees– reduces the time spent on gathering and manipulating data
Norandal USA
Norandal USA Inc., a division of Noranda Aluminum, is a leading manufacturer of rolled aluminum foil and light gauge sheet products for consumer and industrial markets.
CHALLENGES FACED – DELIVER PLANT IMPROVEMENTS THROUGH TIMELY AND ACCURATE INFORMATION
Norandal has a great history of process and performance innovation and improvement, but there were certain areas where it felt timelier, actionable and reliable information would accelerate initiatives further.
In Huntingdon, Tennessee, Norandal has a Quantum Leap plant – an ultra-modern, high-speed aluminum foil plant. This plant utilizes state-of-the-art technology in casting, rolling and material handling. The original plant built in 1967 has also been continuously expanded and upgraded, most recently with a new high-speed caster in 2005.
David Way, process and reliability manager for the Huntingdon site, leads the quality and continuous improvement effort. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and has been the Six Sigma project champion for Norandal. As a result, it was Way and his project team that were behind the initiative for more timely, actionable and reliable information to support the next wave of Norandal’s continuous improvement programs in casting.
In order to analyze and report on certain performance metrics, Norandal spent a great deal of time and effort collecting, sorting and charting the data. “We lacked the desired level of timely and actionable casting information– the first and critical step in the rolled foil manufacturing process,” explains Way.
SOLUTION – NORANDAL SELECTS INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY FROM ATTUNITY
Way and his project team worked with Brent Koenig, Norandal applications manager, to define their business needs. The critical success factors for Norandal included the ability to:
- Access and leverage manufacturing data in HP’s OpenVMS;
- Present critical key performance indicators visually and in a timely manner;
- Create alerts and support proactive decision-making;
- Act on the information, not just view it.
Based on the above requirements, Attunity InFocus was selected and implemented, reflecting Norandal’s ongoing commitment to leveraging innovative technologies throughout its plant.
BENEFITS REALIZED – ALIGNMENT OF PRIORITIES TO DRIVE QUALITY, THROUGHPUT AND PROFITABILITY
Using Attunity InFocus, Norandal monitors intraday casting performance results to identify potential areas for quality and process improvements across the casting lines and multiple alloys that it uses to manufacture its heavy gauge foil, light sheet and other aluminum foil products.
As a result of implementing InFocus, the PIW (pounds per inch of width) performance indicator can be easily monitored, assessed, and analyzed in detail using drill downs. This particular performance metric for casting was selected as the initial application for InFocus as it was a time consuming and difficult metric to track and report consistently manually before. Now, process and production employees in both plants at the Huntingdon site can monitor this performance metric.
Norandal has realized many benefits from using InFocus to monitor, analyze and act on opportunities within casting. Through InFocus, management identified certain hardware improvement opportunities that resulted in increased casting efficiency – a critical performance metric for this manufacturer.
Given Norandal’s focus on quality and continuous improvement, it comes as no surprise that multiple Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing and Engineering projects are underway at any given time. With Attunity InFocus, the management team is able to prioritize and identify the projects that have the largest impact on quality, throughput and profitability.
“With InFocus, we now feel more confident that our casting priorities and engineers are focused in the areas that will most benefit Norandal. That is a great feeling to have,” says Way.
It’s not surprising to discover, therefore, that he is now reviewing the potential for leveraging Attunity InFocus to other key manufacturing performance metrics across the rest of Norandal’s operations.
For further information please contact marketing@attunity.com