Interview with Paul Wright of Accuride : Steady Wheels Will Get You Far

I first met Paul Wright, CIO at Accuride at the Plex User Conference last year. I was struck by the level headed, low-hype way he approached technology, and also how much time he had invested with the user community around Plex. I recently spent some time with him for my research for the next book around automation and impact on various jobs. I got a very pragmatic set of comments around when automation makes sense (and he lives in the highly automated automobile sector).

 I also caught up on his Plex implementation and this post focuses on that. As you will see he is a firm believer that a solid ERP foundation - steady wheels – is critical for innovation on top.

First some background: Accuride Corporation is a leading supplier of wheels and wheel-end components to the North American commercial vehicle industry. Over the last 5 years it has refocused on that core business. As part of its “Fix & Grow” strategy, it has consolidated and upgraded its steel wheel capacity, expanding its aluminum wheel capacity, refurbishing its Gunite wheel-end business and implementing LEAN principles across the business. It has also been implementing Plex as a standardization platform

Paul : “Because Accuride was built through acquisition, each of the different businesses brought together had its own way of doing things, and some of our brands were using older ERP systems that didn’t fit with our business vision. Data was disconnected from the reality of our plants, and we were spending more time gathering and interrogating data than we were making decisions with it.”

"Our first plant was launched on Plex a couple of years ago, and since we've launched 8 more plants and they've all got sort of different processes, where you have to do from a foundry process, which is very much a process manufacturing type thing, to wheel plants, which is discrete manufacturing, to having forging processes inside aluminium wheel manufacturing, basically taking out over 200 different applications that were being used across different plants, to get all of that working through Plex. I think people have been more interested in having the data centrally."

He explained, it was not just a "shop floor" phenomenon.

"It’s about having a full vision, not that their manufacturing, but for instance our test lab. It now runs exclusively in Plex. Which means that all of the advanced testing for our product is going directly into Plex now. So it's linked to the long term quality of the product. We've done our commercialization process, which moves from design to the production, and we've got that whole process now captured within Plex. So there's been more of a push from the leadership team, to be able to see one version of the truth in Plex."

What about "cool stuff" like sensors and IoT?

"The higher value for us right now is still consolidating more of the plants that we not only owned at the beginning, but we decided to acquire, being on the same platform. That way we start to see trends in the data, both for supply chain, and also in terms of the customer climate geographically. There's more value for us in that kind of information right now, than there is in necessarily connecting another sensor to a press. I'm not saying we won't get there, but we've still got so many layers of the data that we've only just started to acquire."

But they already have plenty of sensors

"We've got production counters deployed across our environment, we've got vibration sensors deployed across our environment. Right now we're just starting to see some of that information into Plex, in terms of this field can utilize the typical machine readings. So through web services, you can send out messages and receive those messages. We've also integrated quite a few of our gauges into the system."

And there's more of that coming

"It's about putting those quality systems online. So it's not just about the defect, that's downtime related now. It's about a defect that's quality related, it's getting immediately to the quality team. It's about them being able to respond by broadcasting messages to our Plex stations on the shop floor, to say, ‘here's a quality alert, this is happening in this part of the plant, please look out for this everywhere’. You know we're really only sort of scratching the surface, we've got scanners everywhere. Everything is loaded with scanners, but they're all the hand held scanners right now. We haven't gone into the finger scanners because in our environment, with these big heavy things, it's not like someone is pushing things around on a cart, where a finger scanner would make a lot more sense for them.

"For us he's always on his forklift, and so we put the visual display on the forklift, so basically a full mobile PC environment that links up to the bluetooth scanner that he's got on his truck. Yes, we're doing that. We're only going to add layers of technology at Accuride when we think it adds something back to the process, that we can use it to effectively communicate both into, and out of Plex. So as soon as we're done implementing new plants, I think we get to do another round, and do a bunch of fun stuff. Right now we're sort of sniffing at it, and doing a lot of stuff around the edges, and maybe not doing it to the level that some other people may be right now."

"Or take vibration readings. So the machine knows that it's started to shift itself a little bit more. It requires investigation, and can the machine then tell us, basically self diagnose, that hey, something's the matter with me, yes, I think so. I think putting the maintenance, the PM's into tablets, and mobile phones, vs. people writing down what they saw, on a piece of paper, is important. I think that being able to, as soon as you know you have a problem, then look at the system and say okay, here's all the spare parts I need. Then be able to trigger, that if you're pulling too many of this type of spare part, in this period of time, then something has changed in your process."

" I think there's nothing more frustrating for the guys who are running on those lines, than if they're constantly up and down. People like it when they're making stuff, and everything just works. Anytime you can identify an anomaly, through automation, through sensors, through different types of usage, you better understand what's going on within your factory, and enables you to remove any of the anomalies, which makes everyone run better."