Continuity is king

lonbond has reliability in house with VMI 

What do a Senseo coffee machine, a Mercedes engine and a washbasin tap have in common? They all contain parts that have been given a high-quality coating by Ionbond in Venlo. The machinery runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Together with itsme, Ionbond set up a vendor managed inventory (VMI). "We have to be able to rely blindly on our technical stock for repairs.

Ionbond is well represented worldwide, with each branch serving a variety of markets. Ronald van Vliet, Head of Purchasing & Logistics, takes us through the process of plasma coating, the specialisation of the team in Venlo. "We have machines, large vacuum chambers in which we place the products to be coated. These products are coated by evaporation of metals such as titanium, zirconium, chromium and carbon. If the vaporisation of the materials takes place in noble gas, a pure layer of the vaporised material grows. By adding so-called reactive gases, hard ceramic layers are formed. Evaporating titanium in an argon/nitrogen environment, for example, forms a hard, gold-coloured titanium nitride coating. The coatings are highly functional, despite the relatively thin layer thicknesses in the order of 0.1 to 10 µm.

By the way, this is a simplified explanation of an incredibly complicated process where the control of the resulting plasma (cloud of electrons, ions and neutral elements) is of decisive importance. In this way, every day we convert new customer requirements into specifically developed coatings and make tremendously exciting products with them. Ionbond's expertise extends from engine parts for the major car brands and the application of decorative, wear-resistant coatings on colour for sanitary companies and high-end watches, to the application of ceramic coatings on tools. The latter improves tool life and thus machining efficiency

Focus on core tasks

For an even coating, the products are hung in racks which, in turn, are placed on three-dimensional tables that rotate around their own axis. This is to ensure that the coating flux is deposited uniformly on the products. All these parts are exposed to temperatures of 50 ˚C (for plastics) to 500 ˚C (tools) and therefore require regular maintenance. While some of the spare parts for the overall machine are low value stock, the lack of a meaningless O-ring can lead to machine downtime. This is very costly given the investment and poses a risk of late delivery of coated products. 

"The Technical Department kept track of where the parts were and placed new orders. That worked fine when we were relatively small and everything was still manageable. But in the meantime, we have grown considerably. Our mechanics are very good at their jobs, but when it gets busier, the focus shifts more and more to maintenance. They were replacing a part of a machine, but forgot to order new stock in all the fuss", Ronald says. This increasingly led to rush orders in which the missing parts had to be flown in from all over the world; these are expensive operations, especially for low-value products. When the accountants then also found that the value of the technical stock was not correct at the end of the year, he started looking for a partner to take care of stock management. 

They found that cooperation at itsme, from which they had until then mainly purchased electrical engineering components. Various data analyses led to the recommendation to house the entire MRO package in a VMI. Ralph van Aartsen, Manager of Connected Business at itsme, explains how they first determined the minimum and maximum stocks together. "We set up six rows of 5-meter racks. We placed trays in them and filled them with the articles that had been scattered around the warehouse until then. When everything is at the new location, we scan the empty trays and fill them." The 2BIN system is then operational. Periodically, someone from itsme comes to scan the empty trays so that they can be replenished. In the meantime, Ionbond can use the stock from the second container. 

Guido Hahnraths, account manager at itsme, adds: "Ionbond's technical stock consists of electro-technical and mechanical components. If you outsource something like that, you soon need two parties and that is certainly a problem with low-value products. At itsme, we have both types of components and the associated product knowledge.
 

Great search for parts

It turned out to be a huge job to identify all technical stock items. Everything was scattered over 18 cabinets, often only the manufacturer was known and not the item number. 

Ralph: "Using a list, the employees of itsme Connected Business started looking, but in some cases the description was not clear and the product could not be found. In those cases, we first ordered the item just to find out what it was. 

Over 1600 articles have now been mapped. Searching for 40% of them was a bit more difficult, because they contained custom-made parts. Guido: "In a few cases, these were very specific parts that the manufacturer did not want to supply directly to us. Ronald explains that these were parts developed exclusively for Ionbond. "For these parts, itsme scans the containers. Instead of them placing the order, we receive an e-mail that we need to reorder these products. This means that the management of the stock is still in the hands of itsme and we are once again relieved of the burden. 
 

Optimisation of delivery time and price

Ralph and Guido also started looking for alternatives during the stock-taking exercise. Ronald: "Take a simple O-ring. We pay EUR 75 for it, as it were, because we order it from a supplier who attaches his own article number to it. For price-technical reasons, the manufacturer does not say what type it is. Then the ring arrives at Guido who recognises it and can offer it in bags of ten at EUR 5 per bag. 

He does emphasise that continuity of the articles is the most important thing. The new robot is cited as an example. It runs non-stop, so downtime is very costly.  Guido: "The robot was built in China. We are now investigating whether those parts are also available on the European market. Suppose this is the case and it is 10% more expensive, then we will consider with Ronald whether it would not be better to buy it here. That way you secure availability. 

So continuity before everything? Ronald nods affirmatively. "We operate 24 hours a day, especially for the automotive sector. The guaranteed availability of spare parts enables us to carry out repairs and to keep going, because at the moment we can't get rid of everything we still have to process. It's really crazy busy, so I'm not looking for suppliers, but partners who can support me. As far as that's concerned, we found a good home at itsme."

 

The right chemistry

Ionbond, part of the IHI group and sister organisation of Hauzer, which manufactures the machines - has 17 locations worldwide on three continents, most of them in Europe. The location in Venlo houses about 100 people and applies plasma coating. This technology is still relatively unknown, but is on an enormous upward spiral. It is a clean product that causes no emission of toxic gases, offers an alternative to chromium6 and has enormous potential. Plasma coating often only comes into play when standard solutions are not sufficient. For example, a part of a car engine in which oil does not provide sufficient lubrication. A coating can reduce friction and therefore also fuel consumption. Once a company has found the way to Ionbond for such a specific solution, it often sees many more possibilities and the cooperation grows automatically.

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