Reduced machine idle downtime by 19% in Coventry
Set up rugged tablet tracking on the factory floor so operators could flag raw material delays instantly to the supervisor desk.
We installed physical floor tablets at Apex Mouldings Ltd in Coventry to replace paper clipboards. Operators can now report material shortages to the supervisor desk in 12 seconds instead of walking across the warehouse. This practical system reduced machine idle time on their main injection moulding line by 19% over a 90-day period.
The challenge
Apex Mouldings Ltd operates 7 injection moulding machines in their Coventry workshop. By mid-2024, the plant manager, Dave Mercer, noticed machines were sitting idle for an average of 42 minutes per shift while waiting for raw polymer granules to be moved from the main storage area. Operators were using paper log sheets, which only got collected and reviewed by supervisors at the end of each 8-hour shift.
This delay meant that if a hopper ran dry at 10:15 AM, the supervisor often didn't find out until the 2:00 PM handover. The financial impact was clear: each idle hour on a moulding machine cost the workshop approximately £180 in lost production capacity. Over the previous quarter, this delay pattern had caused 54 hours of unnecessary downtime, leading to backlogs on three major automotive supplier orders.
Our approach
Our team of three—comprising an industrial engineer and two database developers—spent two days on the Coventry factory floor in August 2024 observing the shift handovers. We do not do fancy slides. We configure software that works. Instead of recommending expensive automated conveyor systems, we looked at how operators communicated with the forklift drivers.
We mapped the material request loop and found that 64% of the delay occurred because operators had to leave their machines unattended to search for the supervisor. (Heads-up: we always test the touchscreen sensitivity with standard 2mm latex work gloves before buying any hardware.) We decided to build a direct, localized alert system using low-cost hardware rather than a complex network upgrade. We selected rugged 10-inch Android tablets with thick rubber casing to handle the oily environment of the injection moulding floor.
The solution
We mounted these rugged tablets directly onto the frame of each of the 7 moulding machines. The software interface was kept extremely simple: just three large color-coded buttons on the screen ('Need Polymer', 'Tooling Issue', and 'Cycle Complete') that operators could tap with work gloves on. From clipboards to cloud databases, the system sent real-time alerts to a centralized dashboard mounted above the supervisor's desk.
The dashboard uses a simple Postgres database hosted locally on the office server, meaning the system works even if the factory's external broadband connection drops. When an operator taps 'Need Polymer', the dashboard flashes yellow and sounds a subtle 75-decibel buzzer. The supervisor can dispatch the forklift driver to the exact machine location within 3.2 minutes, down from the previous average of 24.5 minutes.
Results
After a 12-week trial ending in November 2024, the injection moulding machines showed a 19% reduction in overall idle downtime. Let's look at the actual numbers on your shop floor: Dave Mercer's team recovered approximately 11.2 hours of production capacity per machine each month, which cleared their order backlog two weeks ahead of the winter holiday shutdown.
Timeline
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August 2024Two-day factory floor audit and observation of shift handovers in Coventry.
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September 2024Database setup and physical mounting of rugged tablets on 7 machines.
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October 2024Staff training and live testing of the color-coded alert dashboard.
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November 2024Final data review showing a 19% reduction in machine idle times.
"We were sceptical about tablets on a greasy shop floor, and onboarding took two weeks longer than planned while we simplified the buttons. But once running, it saved us hours of walking."