Blog
Here you'll find the articles we've written to help your manufacturing productivity
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How DoorCo Improved Production by 26% with TrackMyMachines
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-12-09
We interview Chris Mansfield, Senior Manufacturing Manager at DoorCo Ltd, who explains how TrackMyMachines has shifted the production culture at their Macclesfield Site. About DoorCo DoorCo is a global leader in composite door manufacturing, celebrated...
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CNC Machining Sustainability
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-11-18
Achieving a sustainable manufacturing process is a requirement for companies around the world to continue operating. As well as new EU Regulations coming into force 2025 and beyond mean that carbon accounting is becoming more...
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Five production mistakes you could fix today to reduce your machine downtime
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-10-11
Looking at the data from our Q2 Downtime Reason Report, we’ve come up with 5 top tips to reduce your downtime. 1. Letting machines run without proper servicing According to our report, reducing machine breakdown...
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Improving your productivity with Machine Monitoring
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-10-10
If it’s your first time monitoring your CNC machinery, it’s hard to know how to use your spindle uptime data to take action in your machine shop. Here’s some tips and methods to get you...
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Data Driven Manufacturing (And how to do it)
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-09-20
Learn how to implement data driven manufacturing in your factory today. Manufacturers are starting to realise the need to use their manufacturing data to take action. Sometimes actually making that data available is the first...
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How to monitor the energy use in your factory
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-08-12
With electricity costs increasing it’s hugely important to measure your energy usage so you can try to reduce it. One way companies do this is by using their probably already installed distribution board. Modern boards...
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Downtime reason report Q3 2024
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-07-29
We’re already more than halfway through 2024, and our customers have been logging their downtime reasons to help spot the highest contributing factors to their machine downtime. I’ve crunched the data for the first half...
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Can you increase machine capacity without buying a new machine?
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-07-18
Trying to keep up with manufacturing demand is hard when you feel like you’ve not got enough machine capacity available. The obvious solution is to buy a new machine, but with economic and political uncertainty...
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What's better than a Kaizen Event?
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2024-07-10
When a machine isn’t as efficient as it could be, it’s important to find out its main reasons for downtime. Doing a downtime analysis in the traditional way, a Kaizen Event, can be useful but...
Read more...How does lean manufacturing apply to machine shops?
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2023-04-05
If you’ve been around engineering for a while you’ll have heard the term Lean Manufacturing, sometimes just referred to as Lean. I’ve heard it used a lot when engineers and managers are trying to improve...
Read more...Gardner Denver saves almost £20,000 per year with machine monitoring
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-08-15
As part of Ingersol Rand Transport Solutions, Gardner Denver manufacture and assemble truck-mounted compressors, blowers and vacuum pumps for the transport industry. Some of their manufacturing is done in-house, and as a constant pressure they...
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Why OEE might not be the right metric for CNC productivity
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-07-30
OEE (Definition) is a measure touted by a lot of manufacturing management experts. It supposedly combines three metrics into one single measure that represents your shop’s productivity. Like many simplifications however, this doesn’t fully capture...
Read more...What is planned and unplanned downtime in Manufacturing?
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-03-14
Running machines doesn’t always go smoothly. Any experienced CNC operator can tell you about all the different ways a machine can be disabled. From bad coolant to a broken spindle there’s tons of ways downtime...
Read more...Manufacturing downtime tracking software
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-01-31
So you need some downtime tracking software? There’s plenty of options available on the market. Between many incumbents like Amper and MachineMetrics, it’s hard to choose which machine monitoring system to go for. It’s probably...
Read more...Free Machine Downtime Tracker Excel Template
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-01-20
If you’re trying to monitor your machine shop, you’ll probably want to measure downtime. It’s hard enough trying to get your operators to buy in, and most of the time they’ve got more important things...
Read more...How to collect data from your CNC machine
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-01-13
If you need to see what’s costing your business money, you need to know how much your machines are down. There are some manual methods you could use, the simplest being an excel spreadsheet. You...
Read more...3 Ways to improve your machine productivity
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-01-10
Whether you’re a subcontract machine shop or a product manufacturer, machine productivity is a critical measure of your performance as a business. Depending on your environment, different manufacturers need to optimise for different things. Increasing...
Read more...What is machine monitoring?
Posted by: Rowan Easter-Robinson 2022-01-05
When you run a machine shop knowing exactly how long it took you to make a part is critical for making sure you’re profitable and competitive. When you’re busy keeping the business going it’s impossible...
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