What began as a redesign of a particular fixture at a local cutting tools manufacturing shop quickly evolved into a complete overhaul of the plant’s layout in order to improve its efficiency. And it all happened thanks to a federal government program aimed at helping small businesses, and the know-how of a group of UWindsor engineering researchers.
“We need a more flexible layout that will allow more flow through the shop,” said Jon Huckle, plant manager at Ramstar, a local company that makes diamond and carbide cutting tools for the automotive and aerospace industries. “This shop was laid out about 20 years ago, and things just weren’t very strategically placed. At the end of the day, it’s all about speed and delivering your product faster than the other guy.”
Ramstar was assisted by a team of researchers in the lab of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering professor Ahmed Azab, who received a grant from the FedDev Ontario Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative. Aimed at addressing the gap between research and commercialization by encouraging collaboration between post-secondary institutions and small- and medium-sized enterprises with pre-market needs, the initiative’s goal is to improve productivity and competitiveness for businesses located in southern Ontario. UWindsor faculty and student researchers worked on 18 companies on a variety of projects.
Dr. Azab’s group – which included master’s students Maral Zafar Allahyari and Khalid Nawaz, PhD candidate Aiman Ziout, and Jeremie Palas, a diploma engineer from France – began by working on redesigning a fixture that makes tools used for cutting rubber o-rings for an aerospace customer. The group was looking for ways to reduce the amount of set-up time between making each part, and for the time required to “dress” the wheel which cuts the carbide tool.
Before long, the project evolved into analyzing the entire plant’s operations, looking for ways to work more efficiently by finding methods to reduce the travel time of each part as it makes its way from raw material through to final inspection at the Blackacre Drive facility. Much of that work was handled by Zafar Allahyari.
“I really enjoyed it because it was like a puzzle for me,” she said. “I had to spend a lot of time trying to understand the process and the relationships between the machines. There are a lot of products, so we had to group them in to families.”
Time and resource management helps every member of the department, said Dr. Azab, who noted that the plant would soon be implementing many of the changes his team has suggested.
“So far it’s been great,” Huckle said of his first experience working with the university. “They bring a lot of know-how to the table, and they all have expertise in a lot of different areas.”
An event to celebrate all of the university’s partnerships through the FedDev program will be held today from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation. Tours of the building are being offered beginning at 3:30 p.m.