The Problem
The automotive industry operates strict compliance, and almost all automotive suppliers have been caught with fines at some point. Our customers were experiencing these fines for common problems such as part mislabelling, incomplete shipments, damaged parts and mixed part stillages. In addition to this, the lack of traceability for each process meant that our customer was unable to accurately find the source of the problem or track operator errors.
The Solution
Maxim developed a bespoke EOL Traceability application to be implemented line-side. Our application scanned the WIP or route card information to gather the part number and quantity required for the stillage. The operator then scanned the required number of parts, with each barcode encoded with a unique serial number to ensure that the correct number of parts are scanned with no duplicates. Once the correct number of scans is completed, a final Odette label is printed with a unique serial number which is logged on an SQL database with the time, date, and operator name.
In addition to the core application, Maxim’s traceability application has a number of add-ons. For example, the option to scan locking bars in the stillage to confirm that the parts have been loaded correctly. Each locking bar is labelled with a unique barcode, which is only accessible when the bars have been locked in place.
We also supplied the required scanning hardware and support, allowing us to provide a comprehensive solution for our customers that did not require them to deal with multiple vendors.
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