Rimstock is Britain’s leading alloy wheel manufacturer. It designs, manufactures and supplies to some of the world’s most prestigious auto marques including Lotus, Alpina, BMW and McLaren. Based in West Bromwich, its engineering plant specialises in the advanced manufacturing of forged and cast aluminium wheels. These are for OEM’s, motorsport, defence, concept and aftermarket sectors.
The automotive market has been challenging recently for Rimstock. Brexit and the resulting economic uncertainty, and increasing emissions targets, meant the need to stay competitive through innovative design and unrivalled service was ever present. The manufacturer responded by beginning its digitalisation journey. This helped streamline quality inspection audits beginning with its state-of-the-art paint facility.
Having recently joined Rimstock as its new Operations Manager, Mike Wise knew that the manual paper-based approach to inspection audits and compliance was in need of urgent review.
Returns and the associated costs had been escalating, creating added pressure. Each returned alloy wheel had to either be reworked or manufactured, incurring further costs. This was a major concern for a manufacturer whose reputation depends on delivering the very highest quality.
The first step on the digitalisation journey
Mike had spearheaded digitalisation projects in a previous role. He had introduced WorkfloPlus from Intoware to enable the business to go paperless. He aimed to use this digital tool once again to improve Rimstock’s inspection and compliance audits. This would prove beyond doubt its products are always defect-free when they leave the plant.
WorkfloPlus would also provide the quantifiable data needed for Rimstock’s failure mode effects analysis (FMEA). For example, paint line characteristics are measured to help improve its production processes. This looks at where any failures occur to ensure the highest quality standards.
Previously, inspection and compliance audits were completed manually using check sheets. These were then filed by its quality control technicians. The problem was that these lists could be easily misplaced or damaged. They were often filed the next day. This meant that when it came to large external audits, it would take a couple of weeks for staff to manually check for these errors. Alternatively, the manufacturer would risk not being able to supply at all.
How Does Digitisation Deliver Quality Audits?
By introducing WorkfloPlus integrated with tablets, quality control technicians can easily follow digital instructions to complete quality audits and compliance tasks. They are required to log when the process has been completed, by whom, and upload supporting photos taken with their tablets. This ensures the data is accurate for compliance and is easily shared with key customers.
Rimstock’s technicians quickly found WorkfloPlus easy to operate for routine quality audits. They simply follow the instructions on the tablet to complete the audits step-by-step. It is currently used for 15-20 workflows a week seeing an increase in inspections completed by 125%. The workflows can be easily updated as new parts come online.
Mike continues: “Our largest customers are European based. So the ability to share images of the finished product is of huge importance to us. We had been experiencing problems with one of our key customers. However, once WorkfloPlus was introduced, any issues dropped right off as our new automated system is so robust.
“WorkfloPlus allows us to show the engravings on individual parts and of course you can enlarge the photo for even finer detail. It also means that lots of the many smaller checks are never missed, like checking the paint film build next to the cap, it’s easy to forget unless you have digital instructions to follow.
Our alloy wheels often go to third-party fitters, but we were finding two major issues; damage to the back rim of the wheel as some types of packaging can lead to scuff marks while in transit and damage from removing the wheel from its packaging. Alloy wheels typically weigh 8-9 kilos so they can be easily dropped by fitters, previously Rimstock would be held responsible for this type of damage, but with WorkfloPlus we can challenge these issues with complete confidence.”
By February 2020, Rimstock was able to get its returns in ppm down. The impact of digitising was easily measured. WorkfloPlus had proved itself in terms of financial ROI, compliance and operational efficiencies. This was thanks to improved quality controls and real-time data reporting. Most importantly, it helped the manufacturer improve relationships with the world’s leading OEMs it supports.
What’s the future for WorkfloPlus and Rimstock?
Rimstock has recently appointed a quality manager. We’re starting to do control plan audits. This means getting into the fine detail of how the paint facility runs. It also involves questioning everything and creating a Gap Analysis of what we need to do. The way we fill the ‘gaps’ is by using WorkfloPlus to share key data on how jobs are completed.
The next stage is to map out exactly what we need to do in the future, our workflows need to integrated with our existing ERP system to unlock further operational efficiencies beyond the paint facility to include the entire manufacturing plant – that’s the aim for the next two years.” Mike Wise, Operations Manager, Rimstock
