PRODUCT REVIEWS
Digital workflows on the shop floor to manage jobs
OTF
Hodge Clemco , a manufacturer and supplier of surface-finishing equipment , has rolled out a fully digital , job-management system from BigChange . Using the cloud-based system , Hodge Clemco has doubled the size of its mobile workforce , without having to increase its back-office support , and is close to achieving its goal of paperless working . The UK company has also deployed the BigChange customer portal that allows customers to directly access service and site history information and book engineer appointments .
“ Before BigChange we relied on carboncopied worksheets which meant we had to wait for the completed paperwork to make its way back to head office and then had to manually enter the details for quotations , invoicing , payroll , customer reporting etc .,” commented Andy Peart , Sales and Service Director , Hodge Clemco . “ This was timeconsuming , labour-intensive and had the potential to introduce errors into our systems .
“ Using BigChange , our engineers automatically receive job sheets which are completed using the mobile app whilst on-site and are instantly available for the back-office team to access ,” he continued . “ This means that we are currently about 80 per cent paperless , and improving all the time , we have doubled the number of engineers employed without having to add any additional support staff and are hitting KPIs for quotations and customer reporting .”
Hodge Clemco has been designing , manufacturing , installing and maintaining surface-finishing solutions ( including blasting , abrasive blasting and coating equipment ) since 1959 . Through acquisitions and mergers , it has grown and now employs 120 staff , over two main sites , and offers the full customer portfolio of ‘ total service and solution ’. Now part of the Surface Prep network of companies , Hodge Clemco has worked on many installations for the UK Ministry of Defence and Rolls Royce .
Since rolling out the BigChange job management system , which incorporates a mobile workforce app ; customer relationship management ( CRM ); job scheduling ; live tracking ; financial management and business intelligence , Hodge Clemco has quickly reengineered many of its workflows . Feedback from site visits is automatically shared with back-office staff to produce quotations within a defined timeframe . Once accepted , jobs are scheduled and worksheets , together with supporting site and equipment histories , are issued to the engineer .
Completed job sheets including ( where required ) time and location stamped photographs and customer sign-offs , can be accessed , in real-time , by the back-office support team and are used to inform customer reporting and produce invoices , stock updates and more .
“ As we introduce different elements of the BigChange system , we realise more and more benefits ,” Peart concluded . “ Each feature has the potential to improve efficiency , boost productivity and raise our customer service levels and , as we continue to roll BigChange out across the Group , these will have a significant impact on the growth and profitability of the business .”
Launched in 2013 and based in Leeds , UK , BigChange is a field service management software provider used by more than 1,900 field-based organisations around the world . It employs over 220 people and , in 2020 , was awarded a Queen ’ s Award for Enterprise : Innovation . The company has also featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 in 2018 , 2019 and 2020 and was named in the 2018 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 . n
www
. bigchange . com
MotionSync technology . Remote laser welding
Blackbird Robotersysteme GmbH , a manufacturer of system solutions for remote laser welding , presented new functionality for industrial ‘ on-the-fly ’ welding processes at the Laser World of Photonics 2023 exhibition in Munich this June .
OTF MotionSync enables automated manufacturing processes with high throughput , as required e . g . for electromobility . The special feature provided is the new software , designed to enable welding processes to be carried out precisely , even though the scan system is moved at the same time or the components themselves are transported under the scanner on a conveyor belt . This ensures that manufacturing processes with extreme accuracy requirements , such as the welding of batteries or bipolar plates for fuel cells , can be controlled efficiently and be traceable in the future .
“ Our core competence for many years has been precise laser welding with scan systems that are permanently mounted or guided by industrial robots . We are a pioneer in ‘ mobile ’ laser welding , called on-the-fly ( OTF ). By using the new OTF MotionSync software , this knowledge is now transferred to the precise processing of moving components . The software determines the exact position of the scanner and component by reading the high-frequency position data from up to two channels . The data are processed during the laser process and compared to the welding geometry . Therefore , the software can always guarantee precise welded joints ,” commented Blackbird Robotersysteme GmbH .
The new software solution makes it possible to implement rapid component sequences and high throughput , for example in battery or bipolar plate production . Conveyor systems with up to two linear axes can be used for the welding process .
OTF MotionSync , which can be combined with all 2D and 3D scan systems offered by Blackbird ’ s sister company SCANLAB , were showcased at Munich at the end of June . Beta versions for industrial-scale test installations are also available . n
www
. blackbird-robotics . de
108 | ismr . net | ISMR September 2023