Mitsubishi Materials Corporation Sanpo Plant Overview
Mitsubishi Materials Corporation Sanpo Plant is a global manufacturer of copper and copper alloy products. The plant covers an area of 99,174 square metres and produces around 80,000 tonnes of copper products such as coils, sheets and rods annually. They have set out to solve the challenge of locating thousands of products in the manufacturing process and improve the efficiency of production processes.
Mitsubishi Materials Corporation Sanpo Plant is a global manufacturer of copper and copper alloy products. The plant covers an area of 99,174 square metres and produces around 80,000 tonnes of copper products such as coils, sheets and rods annually. They have set out to solve the challenge of locating thousands of products in the manufacturing process and improve the efficiency of production processes.
Challenge: Streamlining Operations and Product Location
Mitsubishi Materials was looking for a way to streamline their operations so it didn’t have to waste time searching for the location of a specific product among thousands of products inside and outside the plant. At the same time, the company was looking for a method that would allow for proper production control.
In such a large plant, products based on metallic materials, which were always difficult to distinguish from the outside, were stored in different locations, and employees spent a lot of time trying to find a specific product. Improving operational efficiency became, therefore, a necessity.
Implementing Quuppa RTLS and Patt Plus Technologies
Mitsubishi Materials evaluated various technologies, including RFID and image recognition, to solve this problem. However, many issues remained that even these technologies could not solve in a plant that manufactures large metal products.
Ultimately, they opted for Quuppa RTLS technology, which provides highly accurate, real-time positioning of people and assets, and Kokusai Kogyo Co.‘s Patt Plus, designed to use the positioning data.
Ultimately, they opted for Quuppa RTLS technology, which provides highly accurate, real-time positioning of people and assets, and Kokusai Kogyo Co.’s Patt Plus, designed to use the positioning data.
They installed the Quuppa Intelligent Locating System™ both inside and outside the plant and carefully tested whether the products could be located correctly and whether there were any new issues to solve.
At the same time, they repeatedly tested Kokusai Kogyo Co.’s Patt Plus to leverage the solution to improve operational efficiency by visualising location information and advanced management of production processes.
Increasing Production Efficiency through Precise Tracking
With the implementation of Quuppa and Patt Plus, Mitsubishi Materials can now instantly determine the exact location of their metal products, which was a challenge for the company. Using the exact location of their products, they can improve the accuracy of their production control, allowing them to identify and analyse problems in their production process and take appropriate action to improve.
Next Steps
Mitsubishi Materials intends to extend the use of Quuppa’s highly accurate, real-time location information to include worker safety management in the production process.
As a Quuppa Premium Partner in Japan, Kokusai Kogyo will continue to work with Mitsubishi Materials to solve various issues related to the further improvement of production processes.