Westley Plastics
Assembly Line
200-Year-Old Manufacturer Turns to Smart Technology to Drive Efficiency
Westley Plastics is a family-run business that specialises in taking engineering plastic products from concept and design to final manufacture, utilising its on-site design, casting and CNC machining facilities. It works across several heavy industrial sectors including construction, defence, automotive, rail and steel. The company operates 24 hours a day, but it wasn’t evident whether machine utilisation and productivity were consistent throughout any 24-hour period. It was agreed that greater visibility of the shop floor through machine monitoring would enable them to identify capacity and cycle times and help to focus the workforce on the processes that required and benefited most from their skills.
FourJaw’s manufacturing analytics platform, which works on machines of all types and ages, enabled the business to identify machine downtimes and understand the reasons behind the stoppages. Machine monitoring has also identified and improved cycle times. The team had previously discussed running two machines at the same time but didn’t think it could be done. However, the data from FourJaw revealed which machines could be run together – improving efficiency, productivity and job profitability.