Mould Tool company gets into shape with Preactor

Founded in 1986, Solent Mould is at the cutting edge of the blow moulding industry, employing 45 trained personnel from various sectors of engineering and turning over 3.3 million a year. At its modern 17,000sq.ft manufacturing facility in Waterlooville, Hampshire, the company produces aluminum and steel moulds for some of the largest plastic bottle producers in Europe and America. Also manufactured, are components and patterns for the motor racing industry, along with Injection, Compression and Transfer moulds for the rubber industries.

With the demise of the Metalbox company in Portsmouth, its tool room and design departments were reborn as Solent Mould Tools, bringing with it 30 years of mould making experience and knowledge. With such an impressive pedigree, the company was keen to complement this with an equally sound reputation for speed of delivery. This is where Solent Mould's relationship with Preactor International began.

Although a thriving business with state-of-the-art machinery including 5 high-speed CNC machines in which three are 5-axis, plus CAD/CAM design technology, the one enduring problem over the years has been bottlenecks in the production system, which the management felt was unacceptable. 'With the old method of planning using a board and cards rescheduling was rendered impossible.' said Stuart Bateman, Solent Mould's project planner. 'We soon realized that we would do well to obtain a computerised scheduling system in order to improve the chance of achieving due dates. And with the current expansion of the company and the increasing workload, we needed the ability to plan ahead and to have visible data that could aid decision-making. We also needed a system that was able to incorporate future needs, and also highlight these bottlenecks.'

After extensive searching for a suitable system, the company chose the P300 FCS scheduler from Preactor International. 'The decision was made based on the system's varied scheduling abilities including its ability to plan forward in a graphical way. SFJ Systems, a Preactor Solution Provider and software developer were commissioned to implement the system. With the system up and running this allows us to plan future production with an improved degree of accuracy. In addition, it allows us to visually see where there may be further capacity and on which machine resources. The system also permits management to see what rescheduling can be made and what implications they would have.

All this functionality helps us improve production, schedule more efficiently and improve quotations. It could even lead to improved sales. Probably the most fundamental advantage, though, is its ability to help us reduce due dates.' Implementation of Preactor took a few months due to the complexities of Solent Mould's products and the way it manufactures them the system now covers 95% of the workload going through the factory.

'The service we have received from SFJ Systems has been very good indeed,' said Stuart. 'SFJ has been quick and helpful to act upon any queries or requests we might have, and its personnel have enabled us to customize our Preactor P300 system to suit our specific company needs.'

Solent Mould uses four Preactor viewers along with a P300 FCS Master Scheduling System. SFJ helped with the integration of the complete package on site, aided by Solent Mould's in-house IT personnel. SFJ have also installed their own shop floor time recording system linked to the schedule, this enables us to have full product traceability and production time monitoring, and is now an important management tool for us. The company uses Tricorn a sales ordering process system, which went live about a year and a half ago. 'Currently there is no integration between P300 and Tricorn but we are again using SFJ to close that loop and add to the current system to offer MRP functionality. There are a lot of improvement measures in the pipeline and the P300 with the Preactor viewers will continue to play a big part in these developments.'

Stuart joined Solent Mould last year as a student IT/Mechanical engineer in his gap year from University. With one year to go before completing his Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, he has been largely instrumental in ensuring the company gains the maximum benefit from the Preactor solutions.

'The P300 system allows us to provide a due date almost as soon as we receive an order enquiry,' he said. If later on in a project problems occur, things can easily be shuffled around. 'The P300 is great for pointing out availability for each machine,' said Stuart. 'One of the great advantages of the scheduler is that all concerned can see the production dates, see the due dates to aim for, and adjust things as and when various imponderables crop up. And along with the visible planning capability of the system, the early warning facility makes improved delivery times even more achievable.'

Graham Hackwell of Preactor commented, 'The Metals and Fabricated Metals sector is a prime market for Preactor with almost 14% of installations being made here to SMEs like Solent Mould Tools. They are already reaping the benefits of finite scheduling and they will be able to build on this when they have completed the integration between back-office and shop floor activities'.