Digitizing Processes Saves Thousands Per Hour

The Customer

For almost 100 years this company has been one of the leading manufacturers of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives.

Through its subsidiaries and dealers, they market and sell their products around the world as one of the leaders in the equipment manufacturing space. To achieve its strategic goal, the company needed to digitize and share standardized processes with operators to minimize waste and control machine setups and changeovers.

So far, they have fully deployed Dozuki at several of their manufacturing and machining areas. This case study will highlight the challenges faced, its application of Dozuki, and the results.

The Challenge

In the limited number of existing documentation, frontline workers found it difficult to share their feedback in order to improve operations. Previously, they were using Excel to create and store process information, many of which contained upwards of fifty pages of information to read and retain.

By using Excel, they also lacked the ability to gather and implement frontline feedback, missing out on invaluable insights into how operations can be improved along the way–tribal knowledge was the norm.

The initial goal was to correct inconsistencies in production and prevent rework. Job shadowing as a primary training method was leading to competency gaps between employees. Another significant factor was safety. With the high potential for injury on the frontline of their foundries, the customer needed a solution to ensure with absolute certainty, so all employees had a clear understanding of safety protocol and best practices.

In bringing in new automation technology into the facilities, this company needed to ensure standards were properly distributed to frontline operators to better maintain, support, and utilize new hardware.

Without Dozuki, the investment in automation would have led to significant downtime because there would have been no way to train frontline operators without production stoppage.

One Training Specialist summarized their need for a connected worker solution when he commented, “It’s not really the cost of training. It’s the cost of the mistakes workers make when they’re not properly trained.”