Ribbon loom
Textiles engineering, production machine
As-is analysis, conception and
development of a functional sample,
target cost management
20 months, work ongoing
Ribbon loom: customers in the loop.
A leading manufacturer of weaving machines for ribbons and narrow fabrics found itself with a wide portfolio of products, four machine widths and a whole host of drive arrangements and weft heads – the multiplicity of variants on offer necessitated the manufacture of over 400 individual parts.
Producing all these components was extremely complex and caused protracted lead times as pre-assembly was not feasible. Our task was to reduce manufacturing costs across the portfolio by at least 30% by means of design changes and modifications to the production process.
prolim took suitably radical action and designed a modular concept: just two kinds of base frame rather than six, a significantly larger number of basic components but with the number of class and model parts reduced to a minimum.
The rewards were numerous: we achieved a 30% reduction in manufacturing costs as well as a reduction in assembly costs of no less than 60%. And as we made it possible for all weaving machines, whatever the model, to be pre-assembled, the manufacturer is now able to offer customers radically reduced lead times.