Unit Traceability, Error-Proofing, and OEE Gains Across Two Plants
On a mission to make homes healthy
AprilAire has a long history of helping families improve their health and comfort by controlling their indoor air quality. The AprilAire Healthy Air System provides an all-in-one solution addressing every aspect of indoor air quality — a complete collection of whole-house solutions designed to help people breathe easy.
AprilAire first implemented 10in6 in its Poynette, Wisconsin plant as part of a plant modernization initiative. The primary driver was serialized unit traceability and streamlining manufacturing execution, with improved efficiency as an expected additional outcome. Following the success at Poynette, AprilAire expanded 10in6 into its Madison, Wisconsin plant.
"The line management team can now focus our improvement efforts on the biggest potential gains. We can see when and where there are issues, plus the causes."
Paper tracking, manual reports, and data no one trusted
Before 10in6, both AprilAire plants tracked downtime and quality information primarily on paper. Every OEE, downtime, and quality report was produced manually. Each plant had its own challenges, but both stemmed from the same root: a lack of trusted, accurate, and complete data for real-time and strategic decisions.
Poynette
- Monitor and stabilize production pace
- Decrease downtime and increase OEE
- Provide accurate data for continuous improvement
- Serialized unit traceability — every product shipped with the correct components
Madison
- Eliminate manual data collection and duplicate entry
- Replace inaccurate, incomplete data that no one trusted
- Open data access to all departments — the old system required SQL skills to query
- Quickly identify training needs for new employees
"Before 10in6, it was harder to make decisions. Data was entered manually and it wasn't complete or trusted. Now we know and trust the numbers and can make decisions based on them."
10in6 modules deployed
AprilAire implemented several 10in6 modules across its projects — from production visibility to serialized traceability that gates label printing on completed inspections.
Downtime & Production Reporting
- Real-time status vs. targets to create awareness for the production team
- Trended analysis of issues to focus improvement efforts and resources
- Automated shift, daily, and weekly production reports
- Downtime and scrap data sorted by machine, part number, and shift
Traceability & Scan-to-Pack
- Staff scan all components into the box for shipping
- Confirm the right accessories are installed on each unit
- Confirm the number of bolts and torque on each unit
- Labels print only after all components are scanned and final inspection is complete
- Searchable data to determine root cause if a customer's unit fails
Andon Calls & Issues Tracker
- Operators call for help with auto-formatted email/text to the right department
- Call, response, and resolution times tracked
- Long-term issues and resolutions tracked in a knowledge repository
- Improved response times from Maintenance, Engineering, and Production support
Real-Time Displays & Label Printing
- Large displays with configurable "slide shows" of live production data
- HR announcements, quality and safety notifications, one-point lessons
- Simplified label printing with 10in6's flexibility vs. the AS/400 ERP
- Reduced label printing costs
"We use 10in6 to monitor critical quality characteristics and to ensure every unit has the required accessories. This is done down to confirming the right number of bolts are torqued to the right force before we allow the product to get the final box label."
Measurable gains at both plants
With real-time views, historical trend analysis, error-proofing, traceability, and automated reporting, AprilAire has made improvements across both plants.
Poynette
- OEE improved from 43% to 60% in the first 3 months
- Dehumidifier department OEE improved an additional 10% in the last year
- Downtime as a percent of total hours cut by two-thirds in that area
- OEEs stabilized and became less variable across lines
- Reduced training time for new operators with scan-to-pack
- Simplified recipe management — reduced time and complexity
- Tightened unit-testing tolerances through SPC data
Madison
- Payroll and Engineering each save 2–3 hours per week in admin time
- Easy to identify training needs and set operators up for success
- Operators spend less time categorizing downtime
- Trusted data accessible to every department — no SQL skills required
"It used to take 30 minutes a day to gather and analyse data for our morning LMT meeting. Now it takes 2 minutes each day to know which lines to focus on and investigate the issues."
"The uptime of this system has been 100%. The service we receive from Mike [10in6 Project Manager] is simply the best. He completes projects and updates on time, is always responsive when we have questions, and provides insights that only somebody who has seen many implementations could provide."
"When we started using 10in6, OEE improved without any specific fixes — just putting the numbers out in front of operators enabled them to know where they were versus the production target."
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