The Acumence Product Manager, Steve Klabak, discusses how Acumence helps two-piece can manufacturers with quality monitoring on the plant floor.  How the Acumence team partners with companies to get the most out of their actionable real-time data coming from their cuppers and bodymakers.

The Metal Packager published this article on April 29, 2021, “Real-time Data for Two-Piece Manufacturing”.

Steve, as Acumence Product Manager, what is your role?

“I work alongside our customers and industry specialists to identify our product direction and to help bridge the gap between end users and our development team.  I enjoy working on product architecture and development as well as developing relationships with our Acumence customers.”

What is the goal of your team and Acumence?

“We help can makers collect data and analyze it, so that users at all levels of an organization have the quality information they need to monitor their process and make quick decisions, whether it be comparing two bodymakers, comparing two lines, or comparing two plants.  Acumence connects that data and tells a story.”

What are the most important metrics involved with two-piece can manufacturing?

“It’s hard to pinpoint just a few specific metrics that are the most important.  You really need the whole picture where plant context gives meaning to the metrics you are looking at.  I think what most manufacturers are focusing on is reducing bottlenecks and overall scrap reduction.  These are keys to improving efficiency.”

The Bodymakers and Cuppers generate the most scrap. How does Acumence address this issue?

“Acumence helps two-piece and three-piece can manufacturers quickly identify specific machines and tooling that are responsible for higher than average scrap or downtime.  Operators can then quickly identify where an issue is and take action to fix the root cause of the problem.”

What needs do you see in the two-piece industry?

“In the high-speed processes of two-piece can manufacturing, preventative maintenance and bottleneck analysis can have some of the biggest impacts on total production and production efficiency.  Performing maintenance and swap tooling before significant problems arise is key to reducing scrap and minimizing downtime.  Quickly identifying which machines are causing problems further down the line allows manufacturers to optimize line flow and maximize efficiency.”

In the can making industry, what makes Acumence stand out?

“The first thing that comes to mind is our level of industry involvement.  We work closely with manufacturers, OEMs, and other industry specialists to understand their needs and provide an unmatched level of support.  Our team of consultants has years of experience rapidly deploying Acumence.”

How much data is collected, and where does that data come from?

“Acumence pulls data from multiple sources in every plant. Individual machine controllers, line control PLCs, vision systems, and tool control software are all common sources of data transformed into high-quality, contextual data that is easy to interpret and visualize.  Acumence commonly collects over 500,000 process variables in a plant each second.  This much raw information is useless until it is processed and presented as actionable data.

What will data collected and presented by Acumence tell us?

“We work with plants as they are setting up Acumence to discuss options to make sure they get a complete picture of their plant.  Actionable alerting, spoilage and efficiency analysis, tooling usage, and downtime root cause analysis are just a few of insights that Acumence provides.”

How long does a normal implementation of Acumence take from installation and configuration to go live?

“Normally between 8 and 12 weeks.  This depends on different factors, such as how much data is already collected, local resource availability, and the size of the installation.”

Acumence has been in service for 17 years. What keeps the solution relevant and valuable in the ever-changing technology world?

“Keeping up to date with the latest technology is one of our goals.  With the recent addition of our web and mobile clients, users can quickly see plant status and alerts from anywhere using their phone or tablet.  We are excited about these new releases and the many new upcoming features as well!”