Recently, Alps Intelligent Manufacturing (hereinafter referred to as "Alps") and Zhejiang Jinrui Hardware Rigging Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jinrui Rigging") officially joined hands to fully launch Alps' data acquisition, equipment status monitoring, and Andon systems. This initiative aims to rapidly enhance equipment production efficiency and break through production bottlenecks. While enabling the rapid construction of a visualized, collaborative, and intelligent production site, it empowers Jinrui Rigging's digital transformation to enter the "fast lane".

Jinrui Rigging has been consistently focused on the production of climbing lock ring safety buckles for many years. Since passing the ISO9001 quality management system certification in 2001, its excellent quality has won widespread market recognition. Its products are exported to Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and other regions, with business volume continuing to rise. To further meet growing business demands, Jinrui Rigging actively explored digital transformation paths, aiming to achieve dual improvements in production efficiency and quality.

 Alps Intelligent Manufacturing

How to Empower Jinrui Rigging

As is well known, hardware processing involves a high volume of non-standard customization and frequent line changes and material switches. Factory managers find it difficult to accurately grasp the reasons for unplanned equipment downtime and the associated time waste. How much time does equipment spend actually producing each day? Is there unnecessary downtime waiting? This "uncertainty" in production management largely restricts the improvement of capacity and efficiency, prolonging product production cycles and posing risks of order delays.

In response, leveraging deep lean manufacturing experience and digital practice exploration, Alps built a small, fast, light, and accurate lean digital solution for Jinrui Rigging. Taking equipment efficiency as the entry point, it leverages overall production efficiency improvements.

1. Accurate Identification of Capacity Bottlenecks and Visualization of Unplanned Downtime

To quickly identify capacity bottlenecks and improve efficiency accordingly, Jinrui Rigging relied on Alps' TS-30 data collectors and SS system keypads to rapidly achieve visual analysis of equipment OEE. It became clear at a glance how long equipment was down each day and what caused it. On the day of launch, Jinrui Rigging managers saw the types and durations of unplanned downtime for each equipment on the system. Downtime caused by material shortages and machine adjustment/line changes was the most frequent and relatively long-lasting. The single adjustment time for forming machines even exceeded 4 hours, significantly impacting the improvement of production efficiency.

2. Targeted Efficiency Improvement and Elimination of Equipment Inefficiency Waste

After identifying capacity bottlenecks, Jinrui Rigging also relied on Alps' equipment status monitoring system to efficiently monitor the improvement effects of bottleneck processes. It recorded the response times for material shortage and machine adjustment links in real-time, dynamically evaluating improvement efficiency. To date, Jinrui Rigging has significantly reduced waiting times for material shortages and machine adjustments. Previously, the plan was to purchase 4 additional machines (with equipment procurement costs of around 1.2 million RMB) to make up for insufficient capacity. Now, this can be resolved through Alps' lean digital solution, greatly reducing corporate cost investment.

While purchasing additional equipment can expand capacity, it does not necessarily increase corporate profits. Only by fully utilizing equipment can corporate profit margins be truly improved.

Driven by the digital wave, small and medium-sized manufacturing factories are facing unprecedented new opportunities and challenges. With the exquisite support of Alps Intelligent Manufacturing technology, Jinrui Rigging successfully broke through capacity bottlenecks and achieved a new leap in lean digital production. This breakthrough not only demonstrates the excellent capabilities of Alps Intelligent Manufacturing technology but also provides valuable transformation references for many small and medium-sized factories. Alps will continue to deepen its exploration of lean digital practices, empowering more small and medium-sized factories to continuously挖掘 profit growth points.

About Jinrui Rigging 

Zhejiang Jinrui Hardware Rigging Co., Ltd. was founded in 1996. It is an enterprise specializing in the production of hardware rigging series products, possessing a strong new product R&D team and sophisticated equipment. The company mainly produces turnbuckles, closed turnbuckles, connecting rings, spring hooks, shackles, clamps, swing hooks, various rings, S-hooks, lock plates, etc. Products are exported to Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and other countries and regions, earning the trust and high praise of many customers. The company passed the ISO9001(2000) quality management system certification in 2001.

About ALSI
Alps System Integration (Dalian) Co., Ltd. (abbreviated as "ALSI") is a wholly-owned subsidiary invested in China in 2005 by the Japanese Alps Alpine Group (founded in 1948). It is the Secretary-General unit of the Dalian Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Innovation Alliance. ALSI has been deeply engaged in intelligent manufacturing for over 30 years in industries such as automotive parts, electronics and electrical appliances, and mechanical processing. Relying on the manufacturing DNA of the Japanese group, ALSI delves into the "manufacturing site," combining IoT technology, big data, AI, etc., with lean principles. It has developed the "Hui Pai Supply Chain Resource Planning Platform" and the "Jin Zhi Lean Factory Cloud Platform," which are small, fast, light, and accurate. ALSI is committed to helping more customers in the manufacturing industry achieve efficient workshop site management and embark on the path of digital and intelligent development.