When it comes to quality control on assembly lines, Nathan Sheaff thinks he has the equivalent of a better -- and cheaper -- mousetrap for catching production problems. When his company launches the SigPod on Sept. 15, he'll see if the world does indeed beat a path to his door.
Traditional quality control systems catch mistakes as items roll off the end of a production line. The SigPod, developed by Sciemetric Instruments Inc. of Ottawa, shifts the process around so that any problems are identified and can be corrected immediately as they occur on the line itself. The key is that while this type of sophisticated problem detection has been available to large companies for some time, the SigPod brings it within reach of small operations.
The SigPod is the size of a Kleenex box and ranges in price from about $5,000 to $15,000 depending on the internal sensors used -- vibration measurement is more expensive than things like force. Previously, this type of sensor ranged from about $25,000 to more than $80,000.
Unlike previous types of sensors, SigPods are "plug and play," reducing setup costs. Buyers can retrofit them anywhere on an assembly line instead of having to hire third parties to customize and install them on production equipment. They're cheap enough to buy and set up that customers could potentially use hundreds of them on a single line to monitor quality at almost every step of production, Mr. Sheaff says, adding that Sciemetric has already received about a dozen advance orders from companies that want to evaluate the SigPods.
Sciemetric Instruments Inc. President and CEO Nathan Sheaff poses with a SigPod in the company's lab in Ottawa. (Chris Wattie/The Globe & Mail)
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"They can all be tied together with the software that is running the entire operation," he says. "For almost any kind of production line, this is a great leap forward in quality control. It shifts quality control from detection to avoidance."
Sciemetric monitors use lasers and other testing devices to capture what Mr. Sheaff calls the "signature" of properly operating machines on a production line. That signature is made up of multiple characteristics, such as vibration, depth of penetration for cutters and drills, and the amount of force used. A machine drilling a hole in a metal part, for example, whirrs at a certain speed, exercises a certain amount of force and cuts into the material to a certain depth when it's working as it's supposed to.
"If a machine is operating properly, then it shows the same consistent signature," says Mr. Sheaff. "If, however, it varies from that signature, then our devices immediately notify the line operator."
The Sciemetric device also records the part number so that operators can instantly know which parts have been affected. Line operators and support staff can track what went wrong and when to gain insight into how to correct the problem and prevent it from happening again.
While the SigPod is new, the underlying technology is based on Sciemetric's existing monitoring products that have been embraced by industrial giants. Ford Motor Co., for example, uses Sciemetric devices to monitor quality at all its power train plants around the world. Those sensors can cost around $80,000 each, and since a line might use up to a dozen, orders run up to $700,000 at a time, Mr. Sheaff says.
"We have been using [Sciemetric technology] since 1992 or 1993," says Larry Martin, technical specialist for power train engine assembly at Ford's plant in Dearborn, Mich. "It was a technical breakthrough. We were able to catch problems early on during the assembly process and not at the end of the line."
Sciemetric devices also let Ford move from hot-testing engines -- starting them and letting them run for eight minutes to detect problems -- to cold testing, which involves a quick pass through a Sciemetric monitor. This has saved both assembly time and labour costs, Mr. Martin says.
Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac, Wis., has used Sciemetric monitoring devices on its Verado 135-to-275-horsepower outboard motor line since April, 2004. Next April it plans to add Sciemetric's latest monitors to its 75- to 115-horsepower line.
"It lets us catch problems during the process rather than during hot testing," says Aaron Sagmeister, testing quality engineer. "Now we only have to hot test one in four engines instead of all of them."
Mr. Sheaff started Sciemetric in 1981 straight out of the University of Waterloo. A newly graduated electrical engineer, his interest was in testing scientific equipment. His skills at creating sensing devices that could establish signatures for assembly line equipment led to a test program with Ford.
Today, Sciemetric has 75 staff and offices in Ottawa, Windsor, Ont., Auburn Hills, Mich., Salt Lake City and Milton Mowbray in England. Annual revenue is now "north of $10-million," he says.
His hopes are that the SigPod will lift those sales, since it gives Sciemetric a more affordable product with which to reach smaller companies. "It is essentially a plug-and-play quality control system," Mr. Sheaff says. "To date we have just focused on the automotive power train sector. SigPod lets us get into almost any kind of production where quality is key -- auto components, industrial components, medical devices."
Ford's Mr. Martin is enthusiastic about the prospects for SigPods based on his experiences with Sciemetric's monitoring systems so far. "This is great technology," he says. "I can easily see how other industries would snap it up."
Special to the Globe and Mail
