Run @ Rate Production on New Production Line

In this article, I will talk about "Run @ Rate Production on New Production Line". Run @ Rate is a major business event for production engineers. From the view of a production engineer who has installed many production lines in the past, I will give you an overview of Run @ Rate and some important points to keep in mind.

【contents】

What is Run @ Rate Production for a new production line?
Preparation before Run @ Rate production
Common mistakes in Run @ Rate production

Lack of materials and stingy with the cost of materials
Lack of practice in continuous production
Cannot respond to sudden equipment problems

What is Run @ Rate Production for a new production line?

Run @ Rate Production is trial production where the customer approves the supplier's production process and determines whether or not it can produce the expected output within a predetermined time frame.

For example, under the conditions of a 20-second cycle time, 85% operating rate, and 8 hours of operation, the expected production volume in production time is 1224 units. However, in most cases, this figure cannot be reached for a new production line. The reason for this is that the operating rate is lower than expected due to equipment downtime and other operational losses.

Run @ Rate Production can be carried out to determine the real production capacity. Failure to do so will result in delivery problems after mass production begins.

Preparation before Run @ Rate production

Next, here are a couple of things that must be completed prior to implementing Run @ Rate production with the customer. The main items are as follows

Process verification (process capability, inspection machine correlation and repeatability)
Preparation of Manufacturing Documentation
Operator training (including training records)
Management Release

Basically, the production will be at the same level as mass production, so it is necessary to complete the necessary process verification and operator training. Internal management releases should also be completed prior to customer audits.

This is a major event for production engineers, and the workload at this time is beyond the peak. They are busy debugging equipment, preparing documents for management releases, preparing for customer visits, and so on.

Common mistakes in Run @ Rate production

Some of the failures I've seen in the past are listed below.
We should get at least an 80 or so, but most new production lines result in less than 50 points.

Lack of materials and stingy with the cost of materials

Depending on how many hours of Run @ Rate production, our experience with multiple customers in the past has typically been for one shift. This Run @ Rate production parts are often used for customer D-samples and PV-samples, and can be purchased in hundreds of units.

The cost of materials for practice production alone can be significant, and some people worry about the cost of materials, but consider the cost of materials as part of the capital investment. Run @ Rate Failure can result in schedule loss and loss of customer confidence. In addition, low operating rates in the early stages of mass production can result in significant losses.

The cost of materials for practice production should be treated as a necessary cost, although it can be in the range of tens of thousands of dollars to 100,000 dollars.

Lack of practice in continuous production

You will never be able to do anything in Run @ Rate that you don't normally do.
If you're going to do 8 hours of continuous production in Run @ Rate, you should do similar exercises over and over again to get to a level of success once every few times, to make it work in audit day.

There's not much point in doing a few practice productions of an hour or two. It seems like a surprisingly simple theory, but I've seen a lot of people who don't practice and have a weird expectation that they might do well in Run @ Rate.

Cannot respond to sudden equipment problems

Continuous production will reveal problems with equipment. However, on the day of production, problems that do not normally occur can occur. An engineer who knows the equipment inside and out will be able to respond quickly.

Depending on the equipment, some parts of the equipment may not yet be handled by production engineers and may take longer to debug. First time problems start with an investigation into the cause of the problem, which can take several hours to recover. When a problem like this happens in R@R production, it can have a huge impact.

Some personnel even had an equipment supplier's engineer on site at the time of the customer audit to prevent such problems.

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