Unit Traceability, Error-Proofing, and OEE Gains Across Two Plants
The Challenge
Both AprilAire plants tracked downtime and quality information primarily on paper. Data was incomplete and untrusted, making it difficult to prioritize improvement efforts. The Poynette plant specifically needed serialized unit traceability to ensure every product shipped with the correct components.
The Solution
10in6 was first deployed at the Poynette, WI plant. Real-time production dashboards, Andon escalation, scan-to-pack traceability, and SPC monitoring replaced paper-based processes. Following the success at Poynette, AprilAire expanded 10in6 into their Madison, WI plant.
Results
- OEE improved from 43% to 60% in the first 3 months at Poynette
- Dehumidifier department OEE improved an additional 10% year-over-year
- Downtime as a percent of total hours cut by 2/3 in the dehumidifier area
- Payroll and Engineering each save 2–3 hours per week in admin time at Madison
- Morning LMT meeting prep time reduced from 30 minutes to 2 minutes per day
- Serialized unit traceability ensures correct accessories and torque specs on every unit before shipping
"When we started using 10in6, OEE improved without any specific fixes — just putting the numbers out in front of operators enabled them to know where they were versus the production target."
"We use 10in6 to monitor critical quality characteristics and to ensure every unit has the required accessories. This is done down to confirming the right number of bolts are torqued to the right force before we allow the product to get the final box label."
"It used to take 30 minutes a day to gather and analyse data for our morning LMT meeting. Now it takes 2 minutes each day to know which lines to focus on and investigate the issues."
Could your plant be next?
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