Intelligent labelling gets the right body parts to Honda on time

How UYT use kanbans and barcodes to control production, stop mistakes and avoid fines

UYT makes body parts and sunroof assemblies for just-in-time delivery to Honda's car plant.

All stillages must have accurate labels and contain exactly the parts Honda ordered.

A mistake is not an option. The fine for stopping the line can be the retail value of the car.

Requirement

Each week Honda sends in a schedule. UYT must put the parts for the right and left sides of the assembly lines in separate stillages.

The Codeway system for UYT has to:

• ensure UYT make the right parts,
• print Odette labels for the stillages,
• avoid mixing up left and right hand stillage labels,
• capture Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) data.

Solution

To deal with left and right mix-ups, UYT decided to put a master and slave label printer at every cell. 

The master printer interfaces to the cell's manufacturing robot and controls the slave printer. It has a hand held barcode scanner and is on UYT's computer network. 

Codeway put Honda's schedule into a database, and developed software to print barcoded kanban labels as well as stillage labels.

After the operator sets up a job, the robot sends the part code to the printer. The operator must then scan the barcode on the kanban label. If the codes match the software logs the job in the database and triggers production.

When the batch is complete the system prints the stillage labels and captures ASN data. It also sends a record to IFS, the ERP system at UYT. IFS adjusts the stock of steel for the number of parts. 

Benefits

Roger Morton, IT Manager for UYT, says:

“The benefits were immediate. The legibility problem was solved; and the fact that the label could be printed at the cell where the parts were produced meant a drastic reduction in the number of checks required.”

"We have increased visibility in IFS of what parts are being built and shipped; and we have a much more accurate picture of stock levels on site."

The next phase is job tracking. This will help UYT improve productivity.The system will also allow UYT to have full material traceability from rolls of steel to parts.

The full story

Read the full case study here UYT case study (pdf 389kb).

Next Step

The UYT project is an excellent example of Codeway's identification, tracking and control technologies supporting business processes.

To explore likely benefits in your business, please call the number below or send us this email with a short note of your needs: