Feature Tracking & Traceability Reducing costs, maintaining quality
As part of its continued investment in improved manufacturing techniques and adding benefits to its customers, bearing manufacturer, NSK, has introduced a new barcode system that allows every single bearing produced at its production facility in Newark, UK, to carry details about its manufacture
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n today’s modern manufacturing environment, many industries are improving quality and reliability while also reducing overall costs with the help of new technology. An example of this is the implementation of component trace- ability, which has been an essential requirement in sectors such as aerospace for some time, but which is now being employed in a much wider range of industries. The introduction of two dimensional bar- codes has allowed a greater amount of informa- tion to be stored within a barcode, so instead of just a serial number or batch number, now it is possible to include manufacturing dates, axial run-out and radial run-out figures as well as pre-load information and machining data. All of this can now be laser etched into every single bearing, which enables both NSK and customers alike to have near instant access to this crucial information.
For NSK, this coding forms part of the manufac- turing process and it is used to populate the prod- uct database as well as produce the product labels
which are fixed to the outer packaging. By incor- porating the data for every bearing produced into the production data system it also provides a vital quality control tool as well as complete traceabil- ity, which is required by many industries such as aerospace and automotive.
Defect detection
This information also enables identification of any product that may be affected by a defect, but with such accurate detail, the total number of products affected can be exactly ascertained. In the past, this could only be narrowed down to a single batch or day of production, which could mean much larger numbers of the product being identified as ‘at risk’. The system delivers a proactive method of identifying any defects before the product is dis- patched to the customer. By providing real time reports on materials, components, machines and shift operators, the system can be used to iden- tify exact quantities of parts which may be affected by a faulty machine setting, for example, and allow those parts to be quarantined. In this way the high product quality expected by the customer is maintained and the costs associated with replacement of faulty components are greatly reduced.
While investment continues year on year in research and development, NSK has also invested in streamlining the warehouse and dis- patch areas allowing more efficient service to customers. NSK has a stock holding of several million in the UK warehouse, guaranteeing the best possible delivery times for the majority of the product range.
NSK
www.nskeurope.com T: 0500 232 7464
Automation FEBRUARY 2014
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