Fouch knew automated sensors could help by, for example, identifying the environmental culprits of the hole-punching issues, but with so many potential options to try he didn\u2019t know where to start. \u201cThe worst thing you can do, in a smaller business especially, is muddle through pilot purgatory, hoping to find a viable product,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen someone else has done it before, they know the viable path, and they can save you the time and the expense.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just what three directors and managers from Apple\u2019s engineering and operations teams offered when Fouch and Quinn Shanahan, who oversees Polygon\u2019s medical device production and special products, visited the manufacturing academy in October and November, respectively. Over what Fouch estimates was five hours, the Apple employees evaluated Polygon\u2019s challenges and applied the industrial engineering equation of Little\u2019s Law\u2014which can identify capacity bottlenecks\u2014to devise solutions.<\/p>\n
The result was a detailed strategy mapping out sensors and software that could affordably track production and alert about anomalies. Polygon can now count the number of passes the tube makes through the grinder, and it will soon be able to understand whether an overheated motor or other factors could explain the botched hole punching, Shanahan says.<\/p>\n
If all goes as planned, Polygon will have implemented a working system to address its most significant bottlenecks for no more than $50,000 compared to the $500,000 that an automation consultancy may have charged, according to Fouch. The Apple team is working on visiting Polygon to talk through other upgrades. \u201cThey have walked these paths before,\u201d Fouch says. \u201cWithout their help, it’s going to take us much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apple\u2019s Herrera says giving small manufacturers a sense of the benefits of automation and other technologies could eventually lead them to work with consultants and invest in more expensive systems.<\/p>\n
Two other academy participants tell WIRED that they have not received extensive assistance from Apple\u2014Herrera says it comes down to which companies have prepared a \u201cproblem statement\u201d that Apple can help with\u2014but they are working to bring what they learned to their factories. Jack Kosloski, a project engineer at Blue Lake, a plastic-free packaging startup, says it was eye-opening for him to hear about the depth of Apple\u2019s product testing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fouch knew automated sensors could help by, for example, identifying the environmental culprits of the hole-punching issues, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[311,289,28019,2597,18,19,17,14965,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-237477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-computer-vision","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-manufacturing","16":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115735092762659652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}