Before SPF America opened its third factory, company leadership knew some long-standing challenges had to be fixed.
When Southern Precision Fabrication (SPF) America saw a need to improve employee communications and product tracking, it made the choice to adopt Plex, a set of software programs developed by Rockwell Automation that tracks data, speeds accounting and facilitates inventory assessments.
Since then, SPF America has been better able to control production and operations management across its three precision fabrication facilities, two of which are in Mexico. The company has increased profit margins by over 10 percent and On-Time Delivery by 40 percent. It has also reduced its temporary workforce from 20 to three employees and is able to track and increase Overall Equipment Effectiveness.
“Our headquarters is in Fort Smith, Arkansas. We have two additional facilities in Santa Catarina and Matamoros. We wanted Plex to reduce our Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and eliminate the need of our home base operating as a cloud for the Mexico facilities. Plex also allows our teams to communicate in English and Spanish,” says Anthony Toth, Director of North American Operations at SPF America.
The primary benefit of using Plex is the platform simplifies the process of storing, transmitting and translating data generated on multiple factory floors to a manufacturer’s headquarters. This enables employees in each facility to access live data as products are created and shipped out to customers. The software also makes it possible for the manufacturer to customize products as needed.
“The lack of communication inside a facility and between facilities were primary reasons why products were getting shipped out late. Plex greatly helped us bridge the communication gap between the shop office and the shop floor,” says Toth.
Another benefit of Plex is it enables SPF America to quickly stop production on an order if there is a decommit, or withdrawal by a customer.
“Lastly, I also like that this platform makes it possible for our customers to share feedback easily. The platform is giving us more and better data to work with on every front,” says Toth.
Why SPF America chose to “retool”
SPF America is a full service metal fabrication and finishing business that specializes in fabricating and plating copper bus bar. This component is essentially metallic strips or cylinders that conduct electricity. They are essential components of batteries and telecommunications equipment.
SPF’s founder, Basil C. Brock, started the company in 1977 as a sheet metal shop called Mid-West Enamelers. In 2012, management merged the business with CopperFab, which specialized in copper bus bar fabrication services. They named the new company SPF America. 2012 was also the year that SPF America opened the Matamoros facility. By then, SPF America was turning out products through multiple processes, including assembly, coating, cutting, deburring, electroplating and stamping.
SPF America’s management team decided they needed a better Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to keep track of progress on the products, as the current system required employees to manually download data into spreadsheets.
“(In 2021 we) wanted to open our third facility, in Santa Catarina. We hoped to set up a cloud solution with more capability and reliability for all the facilities. That way they could work together well,” says Toth.
SPF America’s challenges included the fact that supervisors could not review the status of products during the manufacturing process with the current ERP system. Employees had to do manual searches for products as they were being produced on the floor. This wasted time and energy. In addition, SPF America had difficulty measuring Cost of Quality (COQ), a set of data that determines whether is using resources effectively so it efficiently makes products without defects. The company was not consistently recording and evaluating quantities like internal scrap and external rejects.
The issues inhibited SPF America because the company had limited capacity to complete orders. The company was shipping products late on a regular basis. Managers also could not accurately estimate the cost of a job until employees had finished the whole order.
In December 2021, SPF America reached out to Wisconsin-based Rockwell Automation and one of its partners, Control+M Solutions, a Wisconsin-based consultant. It took nine months for SPF America to get set up with Plex. The first three months were the most challenging.
“As we helped SPF America staff become familiar with Plex, we taught them to become “Plexperts,” experts in the platform. Our goal is to help customers run the systems themselves,” says Patti Nowak, CEO of Control+M Solutions.
Implementing Plex at SPF America took between 450 and 500 hours, including 25 to 30 hours of data conversion. Control+M Solutions mapped out the work plan for education and implementation to estimate the price of its services.
“If a manufacturer doesn’t need training in a certain topic, they don’t have to pay for it. If the company wants to learn more about Plex later, they can access our library of free YouTube videos on a wide variety of topics. They can also later request additional consulting services,” says Nowak.
SPF America’s work plan was not unusual, so three to four members of the Control+M Solutions team assisted.
“This typically included myself, a Spanish-speaking consultant and two CPAs,” says Nowak.
The sticking point for adoption of Plex is usually “organizational change management.” The term refers to how the company using the platform must change its operations after adoption.
“People say they want to change but often have a hard time doing it. We handle this by training members of the core team together. We get them to talk to one another and offer them support over time. When they feel frustrated, we remind them change is not easy,” says Nowak.
SPF America dealt well with becoming fluent in Plex to access data in three different facilities, nuances in two languages and costs in two currencies.
“Plex is relatively intuitive and easy to integrate. SPF America found the adoption process went pretty smoothly. Most implementations of Plex are like that,” says Nowak.
What Rockwell Automation knows now
Rockwell Automation has learned more about the process of copper fabrication from SPF America during and after the transition period. This software developer constantly reviews how a range of clients use its programs.
“Clients in over 2,000 locations using Plex. We watch how they start out with their initial pass through the program and reconfigure it over time,” says Chris Balow, Director of Product Management at Rockwell Automation.
Rockwell Automation has also come to understand why Plex helps manufacturers improve their processes quickly. One key is the platform provides data on production and loss in real-time. Historically, manufacturers could only capture data about production on a daily basis.
“With Plex, SPF America can see how many operators were performing below standard, at standard or above standard. It can capture quality issues and issues with scrap generation as they happen. The platform gives managers visibility as to what is happening on the floor and how that will impact the cost, quality, completion date and shipping date of each product,” says Balow.
Rockwell Automation has determined that one of the standout features of Plex as its guided work instructions. These give floor operators step by step instructions on how to perform a task. It can be difficult to translate the material into multiple languages.
Plex also allows clients to add the ability to integrate machines and sensors into certain tasks.
“For example, Plex can be programmed to include animations of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models to give prescriptive guides for operators. This is helpful because there is a high turnover in such positions. Providing employees with detailed, user-friendly work instructions helps ensure the work gets done correctly,” says Balow.
The real-time performance metrics can be used to motivate workers and managers.
“Seeing the product get done on schedule and with minimal waste gives employees multiple chances to know how they’re doing. It also encourages them to think about improving processes,” says Balow.
Rockwell Automation continually updates Plex. It plans to continue its focus on building the platform’s core capabilities for the next year.
“There is no versioning of this software, like Plex 1.0 or 2.0. Every time we create something new, it gets pushed out to customers,” says Balow.
Yet Rockwell Automation is now looking at a new area of focus – onboarding.
“Watching SPF America and other manufacturers like it informs us as to how we can help our clients reduce onboarding time. We want to help them engage workers in everyday activities rather than just train them. Engagement is important to staying efficient. It also helps increase employee retention,” says Balow.
