Production decisions
The best improvement also reaches the machines you already have
Six machines in the same family, built one after another. Each solved a problem its predecessor had encountered in production. The greatest return came not from the new machine, but from applying what had been learned to those already working.
When a purpose-built machine is commissioned, people normally think of one machine. It is designed, built and delivered. If another is needed a year later, the process starts again.
There is another way to work, clearly illustrated by this series: treat each machine as the next version of the previous one. And treat each improvement as something that can, where possible, be applied retrospectively.
Six machines, one evolution
The CCPB family encodes and personalises RFID tickets on a reel. It began as an improvement to a process the customer performed with a slow, vertically arranged machine.
That led to six machines: CCPB2, CCPB3, CCPB4, CCPB5, CCPB6 and CCPB7. None is a copy of its predecessor. Each incorporates something production called for:
- CCPB2 and CCPB3. The beginning of the series and the starting point for its evolution in production.
- CCPB4. Extended personalisation: greater print coverage on the ticket.
- CCPB5 and CCPB6. Isolation between RFID encoding stations, eliminating the interference that prolonged the cycle.
- CCPB7. Encoding boxes adjustable to different formats, detection of products without printed marks, and integrated vision inspection.
None of these improvements came from a feature catalogue. They all came from specific production situations: interference prolonging encoding, messages requiring more printed area, products with new spacings or without registration marks.
What was gained by applying it retrospectively
The series' most important improvement, isolation between encoding stations, was introduced on the CCPB5 and then retrofitted to earlier machines.
On the reference job, that improvement took each machine from 11–12 to 25–27 reels per shift. Achieving that on one machine is a good result. Achieving it across the series is a different scale.
(I explain how that problem was found and why solving it doubled output in another article: [When the machine waits, speed is not the problem](/articulos/).)
The same happened with personalisation: several print-mount improvements were also applied to machines already working, expanding the range of orders that equipment already paid for could handle.
Why it works this way
Being able to apply an improvement to an earlier machine is not accidental. It depends on how the equipment is designed and how the work is done.
Because improvements are developed as assemblies. The encoding area, print mounts, detection. When an improvement is contained within an assembly, it can be transferred to another machine with that same assembly without redesigning the whole machine.
Because the surrounding parts are reviewed. Making the CCPB7 encoding boxes adjustable changed the space they occupied, requiring a review of nearby print mounts to preserve the compact layout. The project evolved as a whole. An improvement designed without considering its neighbours eventually collides with them.
Because experience feeds back into design. What happens in production — what fails, what takes time, what the operator has to resolve manually — guides the next intervention. Without that feedback, every new machine repeats the previous one's problems.
What a series offers that a single machine cannot
Working as a series has advantages that do not appear in the quotation but are noticeable in practice.
Shorter lead times. The CCPB7 was delivered two months after the order. That lead time was possible because it built on everything already resolved in earlier machines. It was not starting from scratch.
Shorter training. Operators already knew the machines in the series, so CCPB7 training focused on what was new: its adjustments and how to work with the new systems. There was no need to teach an entire machine.
Fewer surprises. Each new machine inherits solutions that have already spent months working in production. The new elements are limited and clearly defined.
If you have several identical machines
You do not need to have built a series to apply this. If your factory has several identical or similar machines, ask these questions whenever one is improved:
- Do the others have the same problem? Almost always, even if nobody has measured it.
- Is the improvement contained within an assembly the others also have?
- What surrounds that assembly on each machine? They may not all be as identical as they seem.
- What is the benefit of doing it on all of them? Multiply it. Often, the figures for improving the whole series are far better than for buying a new machine.
A new machine solves one problem. A well-planned improvement can solve it across all the machines you already have.
At 7Axis Industrial, we build complete purpose-built machines and develop existing equipment. What we learn on one, we apply to the others.
See the full CCPB7 case study → Machinery modifications and upgrades →