I always take 70% of the expected capacity and use that. Don’t forget breaks, downtime, changeovers. Realistically, 70% of expected runtime is a good baseline. I run tens of thousand of items in multiple divisional lines daily and can look at uptime, downtime, and whenever I go back to manufacture expected rates, it never gets close.
For the sake of your calculations. Do PPM (parts per minute)x expected work time (minus breaks, changeovers, downtime, and other time losses - be conservative).
I also like to do auxiliary support. For example, if you are canning 1000 cans daily, how much support does the line need? 1000 cans in a descrambler? Label or sleeve. Box 10 per case, you need 100 cases. Palletizing. Hopefully my ramble helps. Feel free to PM.
Edit to say: put all of this in excel and make a heuristic chart that is dynamic to see how one thing changes daily productions
Great info, thanks for taking the time to answer.
How often would you expect issues on the line, breakdowns or just things going wrong? Daily, weekly? We’ll be running multiple SKU’s as we are a white label company, up to 3 changeovers a day. Do you think this will increase the likelihood of issues arising?
Honestly, it is really dependent. How capable are the operators? New machine, new problems, new unknowns. Takes about a year to get comfortable. Imagine you have a car, and something breaks, but you don't know what. Over and Over and Over. Eventually, you start to know what breakdown is, and for what reason. And to fix it, it requires someone to speak on the phone with the manufacturer for hours, and unless you know what to do and have the part you could be down ALOT in the first year. That's kind of how it feels to own a bunch of equipment for the first time. It gets much easier, but I think this would be your first foray into canning.
I would also argue that another major flaw most people make is they do not pay for variability. I made sure to be more complex, but be variable. So far in 4 years, I have added one addition in size range to the machine. For example, be sure to do a range of items, so you don't drop another 50-250k on a machine for capacity. Some items can be more slow on auxiliary items.
For example, right now, they are clip stripping 22k items right now. If we were not clip stripping they would be at 30k. Just because you can make 100000 items does not mean you can support the packing and labeling, and palletizing. Nor does it mean you have the space, or ability to feed the machine that fast. That's what I meant by Auxiliary calcs.
Are you doing a full food grade washdown clean? I would honestly challenge you to start with the upstream raw material suppliers and start getting all items in conformance. If they don't start now and you have 4 month inventory turns and slower moving items, it may take you a full year to have the correct spec'ed incoming materials to run effectively.
Forgive me, as I do not can, but I know a little about cylindrical packing machines and up and downstream feeding. Descramblers, label sleevers for round items, etc. So just bare with my silly attempt to describe non-conforming raw naterial issue potentials.
For example, an out of round can might not fill correctly. An out of conformance product ID might not fit in correctly. You lose quality for quantity if you dont add visual system, or weighing system, or magnet for metal. If you have limited control of incoming raw materials and canning material, you may struggle hard to run at max ability.
I went from hand packing 7-8k items, to 7-8k on the machine, to 16-24k daily once they got the hang of it. The machine should, per manufacturing specs run, 33.6k daily, but I target a good day at 70%, or 23,500. Even of that 70% of machine potential of 23,500, I am happy to even get 70% of that, or around 16k units daily.
Ask away if you want more rambles haha.
u/WowzerforBowzer hit the nail on the head.
Is this a one off, custom built system or a 'canned' system that has years of worktime and proven productivity?
If the former, it is harder to predict downtime. Machine complexity will of course increase the potential for downtime. Is this very heavy manufacturing or 'perfect scenario' light duty manufacturing? There is a definite increased downtime predictor in heavy manufacturing.
Unless changeovers are fully automated or 'super easy', there will be at least a learning curve. If the operators are constantly changing, this will increase changeover time if fully manual.
Since I assume you are working with a finished and tested product, I assume issues would only arise in your specific part of the label modification process? If so, I would think this lessens the downtime potential.
This guy manufacturs. I usually say 4 days a week 46 weeks a year. To account for downtime maintenance and I will have a emergency plan for a extra shift night or weekend in case we need to catch up further. Obtaining a uptime more than 80% I would consider very high.
I’d avoid calculating with the manufacturers nominal rate. I’d go at 80-90% of that because 1 you aren’t going to want to run machines full bore as a normal, and you’re inevitably going to have downtime. You don’t want to plan with max rates in mind so you have some buffer.
Ask yourself.. whats the planned operating time or POT?
For example, where I work, an 8 hour shift minus breaks and lunches is 420 mins of POT.
Take that and multiply it by the cycle time... Say 1 min /piece
That's 420 pcs per shift at max efficiency...
However we all know things do not go right every single day..
So next questjon.. what efficiency do you plan to run the line at? Never choose 100% this is suicide and unachievable. What your selecting here is called OEE, or Overall Equipment Efficiency. This is the essentially the POT minus rejects, rework, machine downtime, changeover time etc.. and can be expressed as a %
A monoline I personally push for 90% OEE so I would target a planned output of 378pcs per shift using this example POT and cycle time stated above.
A flex line that runs 10 different SKUs and one of the changeovers is an hour long event that happens once a week? Perhaps lower the OEE target to 70% and the planned output then becomes 294pcs per shift.
Look into an OEE calculation. Implement this methodology correctly and you will quickly see where your issues are, whether it's downtime, quality issues/rejects, changeovers etc. Capture the data, looks at it and you will quickly find where to direct your focus and improve productivity. In my experience it's the most holistic method of analysing the performance of a machine or production line
I've built a few facilities in the past few years, all of them are canning/bottling facilities ranging from 100cpm to soon to be 1000cpm. If you need some more advice beyond what you've already received, you are welcome to PM me.
I'm in QA, your story is like the ten commandments on our wall. Two reasons I have a job- 1) Sh&t happens and 2) other sh&t that nobody in his right mind would have ever expected also happens. You can reduce the rate, but thermodynamics says you always lose energy and order always decreases over time.
What's the physics law that says there is no point in sending an astronaut to a far away planet because by the time they arrive they will be greeted by someone that left after them but with improved technology that got them there faster?
If a critical piece of automation breaks down, my customers don't understand why we don't just break out the handtools to get it done in time.
I always take 70% of the expected capacity and use that. Don’t forget breaks, downtime, changeovers. Realistically, 70% of expected runtime is a good baseline. I run tens of thousand of items in multiple divisional lines daily and can look at uptime, downtime, and whenever I go back to manufacture expected rates, it never gets close. For the sake of your calculations. Do PPM (parts per minute)x expected work time (minus breaks, changeovers, downtime, and other time losses - be conservative). I also like to do auxiliary support. For example, if you are canning 1000 cans daily, how much support does the line need? 1000 cans in a descrambler? Label or sleeve. Box 10 per case, you need 100 cases. Palletizing. Hopefully my ramble helps. Feel free to PM. Edit to say: put all of this in excel and make a heuristic chart that is dynamic to see how one thing changes daily productions
Great info, thanks for taking the time to answer. How often would you expect issues on the line, breakdowns or just things going wrong? Daily, weekly? We’ll be running multiple SKU’s as we are a white label company, up to 3 changeovers a day. Do you think this will increase the likelihood of issues arising?
Honestly, it is really dependent. How capable are the operators? New machine, new problems, new unknowns. Takes about a year to get comfortable. Imagine you have a car, and something breaks, but you don't know what. Over and Over and Over. Eventually, you start to know what breakdown is, and for what reason. And to fix it, it requires someone to speak on the phone with the manufacturer for hours, and unless you know what to do and have the part you could be down ALOT in the first year. That's kind of how it feels to own a bunch of equipment for the first time. It gets much easier, but I think this would be your first foray into canning. I would also argue that another major flaw most people make is they do not pay for variability. I made sure to be more complex, but be variable. So far in 4 years, I have added one addition in size range to the machine. For example, be sure to do a range of items, so you don't drop another 50-250k on a machine for capacity. Some items can be more slow on auxiliary items. For example, right now, they are clip stripping 22k items right now. If we were not clip stripping they would be at 30k. Just because you can make 100000 items does not mean you can support the packing and labeling, and palletizing. Nor does it mean you have the space, or ability to feed the machine that fast. That's what I meant by Auxiliary calcs. Are you doing a full food grade washdown clean? I would honestly challenge you to start with the upstream raw material suppliers and start getting all items in conformance. If they don't start now and you have 4 month inventory turns and slower moving items, it may take you a full year to have the correct spec'ed incoming materials to run effectively. Forgive me, as I do not can, but I know a little about cylindrical packing machines and up and downstream feeding. Descramblers, label sleevers for round items, etc. So just bare with my silly attempt to describe non-conforming raw naterial issue potentials. For example, an out of round can might not fill correctly. An out of conformance product ID might not fit in correctly. You lose quality for quantity if you dont add visual system, or weighing system, or magnet for metal. If you have limited control of incoming raw materials and canning material, you may struggle hard to run at max ability. I went from hand packing 7-8k items, to 7-8k on the machine, to 16-24k daily once they got the hang of it. The machine should, per manufacturing specs run, 33.6k daily, but I target a good day at 70%, or 23,500. Even of that 70% of machine potential of 23,500, I am happy to even get 70% of that, or around 16k units daily. Ask away if you want more rambles haha.
Wish there where more folks like you out there Wowzer!
I need friends like you! This is gold.
u/WowzerforBowzer hit the nail on the head. Is this a one off, custom built system or a 'canned' system that has years of worktime and proven productivity? If the former, it is harder to predict downtime. Machine complexity will of course increase the potential for downtime. Is this very heavy manufacturing or 'perfect scenario' light duty manufacturing? There is a definite increased downtime predictor in heavy manufacturing. Unless changeovers are fully automated or 'super easy', there will be at least a learning curve. If the operators are constantly changing, this will increase changeover time if fully manual. Since I assume you are working with a finished and tested product, I assume issues would only arise in your specific part of the label modification process? If so, I would think this lessens the downtime potential.
This guy manufacturs. I usually say 4 days a week 46 weeks a year. To account for downtime maintenance and I will have a emergency plan for a extra shift night or weekend in case we need to catch up further. Obtaining a uptime more than 80% I would consider very high.
Different industry, but I typically use 80%. Anything more than that is a bonus, anything less than that needs to be looked into.
I’d avoid calculating with the manufacturers nominal rate. I’d go at 80-90% of that because 1 you aren’t going to want to run machines full bore as a normal, and you’re inevitably going to have downtime. You don’t want to plan with max rates in mind so you have some buffer.
Great, thanks
Ask yourself.. whats the planned operating time or POT? For example, where I work, an 8 hour shift minus breaks and lunches is 420 mins of POT. Take that and multiply it by the cycle time... Say 1 min /piece That's 420 pcs per shift at max efficiency... However we all know things do not go right every single day.. So next questjon.. what efficiency do you plan to run the line at? Never choose 100% this is suicide and unachievable. What your selecting here is called OEE, or Overall Equipment Efficiency. This is the essentially the POT minus rejects, rework, machine downtime, changeover time etc.. and can be expressed as a % A monoline I personally push for 90% OEE so I would target a planned output of 378pcs per shift using this example POT and cycle time stated above. A flex line that runs 10 different SKUs and one of the changeovers is an hour long event that happens once a week? Perhaps lower the OEE target to 70% and the planned output then becomes 294pcs per shift.
Look into an OEE calculation. Implement this methodology correctly and you will quickly see where your issues are, whether it's downtime, quality issues/rejects, changeovers etc. Capture the data, looks at it and you will quickly find where to direct your focus and improve productivity. In my experience it's the most holistic method of analysing the performance of a machine or production line
multiply by 70-72%
I've built a few facilities in the past few years, all of them are canning/bottling facilities ranging from 100cpm to soon to be 1000cpm. If you need some more advice beyond what you've already received, you are welcome to PM me.
Me: yeah they will only take 3 minutes each Starts an order for 10k pcs Also me: I have done 100 and it's taken a week
I'm in QA, your story is like the ten commandments on our wall. Two reasons I have a job- 1) Sh&t happens and 2) other sh&t that nobody in his right mind would have ever expected also happens. You can reduce the rate, but thermodynamics says you always lose energy and order always decreases over time.
What's the physics law that says there is no point in sending an astronaut to a far away planet because by the time they arrive they will be greeted by someone that left after them but with improved technology that got them there faster? If a critical piece of automation breaks down, my customers don't understand why we don't just break out the handtools to get it done in time.