Glass Factory      

Part Processing work for manufacture

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Selecting work for manufacture in Gtrak is a very simple process, whilst still providing the flexibility required for the markets varied product mix and potential manufacturing restrictions. 

An unlimited amount of user configurable optimising groups can be setup to extract work by product, glass, spacer and process (e.g. Annealed Georgian, Toughened Decorative, Shapes, Standard Annealed).  

Manual selections are also available by order, order line, customer, glass stock, material type (annealed, toughened), glazing type (single, double) and process type (shapes, leaded). 

Using the colour icons, operators are able to explore and select work for manufacture. Totals for orders, order lines, items, area, and weight are available to further aid the decision making process. 

We work hard to establish co-operation between planners and office staff who have to produce optimised batches, as well as those at the "sharp end" of  production, each of whom have their own needs. Office staff need to be able to enter orders quickly, planners want visibility and production want minimum disruption to work flow.

We help users to get into the habit of preparing their plan, with people from all departments being involved, so everyone is aware of what is to be done, and has the opportunity to put their needs and ideas forward.

By using Part Processing, orders can be entered complete - no need to separate out Toughened, Leads or Georgians as each of these can be picked out when batching, saving time for Order Entry staff.

In conjunction with our Production Monitoring System, full visibility is available, including the peaks and troughs which need to be  smoothed. This provides planners with the information they need to make the day-to-day decisions concerning production flow and delivery.

By processing groups of materials together, production have less material changes to make with reduced down time and so less disruption. Improved productivity and fewer delivery targets missed means improved profitability, happy customers and less stress.

There are a number of other benefits that to be gained from the Part Processing:   

• Work is planned by the team, and EVERYONE is aware of the plan.

• Improved control.

• Manufacturing flexibility with machine downtime.

• Longer runs of similar Order lines.

• Reduced material waste.

• Reduced labour costs.

• Reduced WIP.

• Reduced Order Entry time.

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Glass Saving Optimiser

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Unlike many of our competitors, we develop and support our own material saving optimiser - OptimiserX UK. This means we have total control over development and are able to turn around changes that are required to suit the individual needs of our customers. 

As Production uses the same data as order processing, urgent orders can be entered and added to a batch immediately. Undoing an entire batch, removing orders or individual lines can also be done trivially.  

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The rapid growth in the use of glass instead of polycarbonate for conservatory roof glazing has substantially increased the impact of shape cutting on daily production for many sealed unit manufacturers. The impact is felt mainly by tougheners, as most roofs use toughened rather than laminated glass.

It is an attractive new market, with higher margins at a time when other markets are in the doldrums. However, manufacturers have quickly found that much of the potential profit is being lost through high glass waste. Since most of he solar control glass being used is very high cost, manufacturers have had to address this, by nesting shapes.

Traditionally shape nesting has been used for repetitive shapes, such as automotive products – wing mirrors, and ‘mirroring’ of shapes, such as standard rakes is common. However, conservatory roofs generally produce large and complex convex polygons. 

Since most glass processors no longer have 6000 x 3000 jumbo cutting tables, there are frequently occasions where a single shape occupies the whole of a 3000 x 2000 stock sheet.

Many of the modern glass cutting tables can read the output from CAD packages, and this has been used as a solution, with users carefully drawing shapes and then manually fitting them together. This is both time consuming at the design stage, and at the cutting table. It also carries a high risk of inadvertent breaking of pieces, and of generating layouts that cannot be broken out successfully.

Other solutions include the use of a light box to project shapes on to the glass, and this has been effective in the subsequent use of offcuts.

Glass requires guillotine type cutting, so solutions used for shape nesting in the steel, plastics, and leather industries cannot be used, as these would generate patterns that could not be broken out.

Finally, although conservatory roofs can use a high percentage of shapes, our research showed that most conservatory roofs have very few shapes. It is, however, understandable, that most manufacturers will always remember the difficult jobs.

The Jotika solution addresses three practicalities:

1. Nesting unique, dissimilar shapes as efficiently as possible, whilst ensuring that both shapes can be simply and successfully broken out.

2. Nested shapes as part of an overall least waste solution by combining with rectangles.

3. Working with the display limitations of automated glass cutting tables that currently assume only one shape per enclosing rectangle.

An effective solution

This solution is efficient overall, lowers the risk of premature breakout affecting other pieces on the stock sheet, and does not require a degree in mathematics to understand at shop floor level, as may be required when interpreting CAD based solutions.

Use of colour diagrams allows the highlighting of nested shapes where no overhead display is available.

Where there are a high number of dissimilar shapes, savings of 30-40% are achievable, compared with single shape per rectangle optimisation, but daily benefits really accrue whenever shapes are cut, by lowering the impact of these shapes on daily production, and by de-skilling complex polygon shape cutting.   

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A wide range of batch selection strategies, allowing the precise sequencing of products from cutting to loading at despatch. Loading to vehicles is just one of the selections provided. As Production uses the same data as Sales Order Processing, urgent Orders can be entered and added to a batch immediately.

Factory layouts demand different product handling and sorting, depending on machinery, storage methods, and available space.

Uniquely, Gtrak allows for the creation of multiple racking strategies to be used for particular batch runs at any stage in production. For example, an annealed glass batch could be slot racked at cutting, the toughened batch cut randomly on to A-frames and slot racked after toughening.

Selection and sorting strategies allow ten different levels, to handle processes such as spacer bending, and for optimising stillage loading.

Production labour costs are reduced by removing handling operations, and by developing higher operator productivity.

The optimisation process can select by glass, process such as leading, and create a single batch, using multiple optimisation rules, to handle all products for a single shift sequenced to meet despatch demands. All cutting tables are supported, including auto loading and auto breakout.

Machinery Gtrak can link to : 

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Our primary objective is to lower operating costs. How we achieve this depends to a large extent on current trading conditions. This is often more important than the availability of manufacturing machinery and storage / buffering space.

As an example of current UK trading conditions, even retail sealed unit manufacturers now handle hundreds of different types of glass, and the percentage of “basic” stock continues to fall steadily. 

Other countries run with far fewer product variants, longer production lead times, and do not experience the same pressures. 

This places a great strain on batching, as the factory requires more and more segregation of work by product, and with widely varying rules for each batch in terms of cutting, sorting, handling. 

We have recognised this issue, and have developed a unique approach to the problem – Optimiser X.

The basis of this approach is to allow the production of many small batches in the differing unique sequences required, whilst at the same time reducing glass waste by cutting across batch boundaries.

Glass handling is reduced – no re-sorting requirements are generated as a consequence of this approach. As far as the factory is concerned, it still receives discrete batches, sequenced as before.

Inevitably, there are productivity gains, at cutting directly, and in glass handling generally. 

Although we do have many Customers with multi-point automatic loaders, some are now too small for current demands, and many still depend on free-fall loading. The sight of stock sheets being manoeuvred up and down factories, with “usable” offcuts going in the other direction has increased dramatically in the past couple of years. Optimiser X can reduce the number of journeys, and the benefits will be noticeably felt.

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Production monitoring System addresses planning difficulties faced daily by manufacturers with fluctuating Order Intake and Delivery Dates, with variable Order lead times. Sealed Unit manufacturers and Tougheners are prime examples.

It provides information in real time down to component level on all products by process, monitoring progress from Order Entry to despatch.

Provides users with real time view of Order progress, current and spare capacity  

Full drill down to component level to investigate potential bottlenecks. Small production problems can be identified earlier, avoiding costly downtime.

Interactive views for production and despatch planning

Allows users to provide Customers with up to the minute Order progress.

Customer selection allows continuous monitoring of major accounts

Up to four views per screen. Each PC can be set up with different default views, which can be modified during operation.  

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We supply a comprehensive range of barcode scanning equipment from single keyboard scanners to high speed, modular, Multi-Drop networks, connecting a combination of hand held and fixed position readers together on a single host/control system. 

With many years experience we are specialists in industrial scanning solutions and can support the design and implementation of entire scanning networks. Our experienced team will work with you to develop a tracking / monitoring solution that satisfies your individual business requirements.

We are authorised resellers for many vendors and are therefore able to offer the most flexible and cost effective solutions for our customers.

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Furnace Performance Monitoring provides an onscreen view outlining the performance for a given shift or time period, based upon information collected by the barcode readers.

The view includes detailed information on downtime, work time, number of cycles, area, leaves, bed loading and 4mm equivalencies for thicker glass.

Labels are scanned as work is passed to the furnace. Reading can be done by batch or by piece which is changeable at any time to suit particular needs.

Tracking pieces at toughening generates a barcode log. This can then be presented as official proof of toughening for BSI inspectors, when conforming to BSEN12150 - Thermally toughened soda lime silicate safety glass.

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The Delivery Scheduling Tool significantly improves despatch procedures. It not only makes the job of organising deliveries less labour intensive, it also provides the tools to help operators make better decisions for delivery route planning.

Users can interact with all orders for a given delivery batch, view and change key delivery information such as delivery address, delivery route and delivery date from a single interface.

Totals orders, products, area and weight is provided per delivery route. Each delivery route is assigned with a driver, vehicle and maximum load, colour text is used to show when a vehicle has gone over or has spare capacity available. Icons are also used to clearly show the different delivery routes and orders for collection.

Drivers and vehicles for each route can be changed for a given day depending on driver or vehicle availability. Customers and individual orders can be allocated to different routes easily to optimise vehicle usage to save on fuel.

The running order for the Delivery Notes can be sorted by order, customer and delivery route. Drag and drop is provided to manually organise the running order that is best suited for daily drops.

Delivery Notes are designed to suit your specification, as well as customer receipt of goods summary, driver delivery lists and detailed loading lists.

 

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