Use of the SFC 4FACTORY real-time production recording system at Donako

Footage and text produced in cooperation with the “Factories in Poland” programme

Efficiency is a key word in today’s industry, and the right organisation of factory operations allows companies to fulfil orders on time, using the full capacity of their workforce. Specialised IT solutions can help.

One of the needs of companies in the 21st century is to increase computerisation, i.e. to improve the flow of information between implemented processes. Information should be quickly collected and processed so that it does not lose its value and so that accurate decisions can be made based on it,’ says Marek Pomazański, Production Director at Donako.
We visit the factory of the Donako company, which specialises in the production of components for wind and hydroelectric power plants worldwide. Over 90% of its products are sold on international markets.

Few people are aware that we can enjoy a longer day thanks to Donako. Donako supplied components for the construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China. By displacing 40 billion tonnes of water, the geographical pole was moved by 2 cm and the day was extended by 6 hundredths of a microsecond, says Paweł Dawid, Business Development Manager of DSR S.A.

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The Donako plant manufactures large welded structures for electrical machines used to generate electricity from renewable energy sources. Components such as stator or rotor laminations for electrical machine cores are also manufactured here, as well as specialised tools and instruments. Production is made to order, so each project can be different and its realisation can be staggered. In addition, the plant has many orders running at the same time. It is therefore necessary to be able to monitor the workflow in real time, so that the actual use of the machines and the working time of the specialists can be properly assessed. This is possible with the right software – let’s see how it works.

The SFC 4FACTORY system developed by DSR has been used at the Donako plant. Data is downloaded into the system from the ERP system. These are the planned work orders to be carried out. When an employee comes to work, he logs into the system, where he receives a complete list of the activities he is to perform at his workstation on a given day. He then selects the task he wants to complete. After starting work, the employee does what he or she has been instructed to do. In the background, the system collects information about the time spent on the task. When the work is completed, the worker changes status and logs in for the next operation or activity he or she will perform on the job. All the data is fed into reports and used to build the Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) index and to analyse employee performance. It is also used to determine job completion times for individual work orders.

There is also a data validation process at master level to check for errors, such as a manual error when entering data into the system. Selected SFC 4FACTORY reports are analysed by planning staff and production managers. Based on this, appropriate decisions are made. Thanks to the implementation of the SFC 4FACTORY tool, we are able to monitor additional operations performed by our employees that are not included in the description of the technological process, which is highly complex due to the unitary nature of production. On this basis, production managers can better manage the working time of employees and plan resources more efficiently for the following months,” says Jacek Przechoćko, System Implementation Leader at Donako. The introduction of such solutions has helped to monitor the production processes at the Donako site.

Thanks to the implementation of SFC 4FACTORY at Donako, the accounting of production orders has been greatly simplified. Originally, the information was entered manually by employees on work cards, but now it is entered electronically in the SFC 4FACTORY system and exported to the superior ERP 4FACTORY system – QAD Enterprise Applications,” says Paweł Dawid – Business Development Manager DSR S.A.

Replacing paper records with IT systems is becoming a necessity. Companies that successfully compete on international markets are opting to digitise their internal processes, making the conceptof Industry 4.0 a reality in Poland as well.