What We Do

Similar to Apple, Blackberry and Cisco who opened up the global smart phone communications market, Memex Inc. is building on networking technology leadership and applying it to machines on the shop floor.  Most manufacturing machines are not connected to any network, and are not automatically measuring production metrics (99% of them per a recent survey).  Rising business costs and competitive pressures means that you need to reduce your company’s operating costs.   There is a way to improve the manufacturing process and improve labor productivity without buying new machines?

At Memex Inc., our solution MERLIN OEE monitors the real-time status of production on the machines you already have.  If you can measure how your production is doing, then you can manage them for efficiency, it’s all about visibility of information.

We understand manufacturing

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is crucial to manufacturing.  Our solution, MERLIN OEE, is a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that allows companies to see first hand the productivity and increased profitability as it happens.  Real-time visible dashboard metrics are available for the entire shop floor to see and OEE + DNC hardware and software enable your company to function at its best.  It generates work orders by an ERP system that sends accurate results back to the central ERP database.  Because it takes the data straight from the machine itself, in real-time, automatically, you will see your company’s production increase a minimum of 10% in operational improvement, and a 20% – 60% increase in profit, in less than 3 months.

MERLIN OEE is a time saving, and money saving solution, that will increase productivity and profitability in the long run.

But how?

The improvement opportunities are normally in one of the following “buckets”:

• Breakdowns – Pro-active operator and trigger emails
• Setup – modal capture, e-alerts
• Downtime – Utilization and down time reasons (Pareto)
• Speed Loss – in-cycle speed vs. product standards
• Small Stops – Machine state monitoring and reporting
• Quality – Identified reject reasons captured by MERLIN

At Memex, we have always found a way to find the hidden capacity.

Our MERLIN OEE solution software will be able to find every little area for improvement in your cycle times to best utilize your machines.  Our solution software knows when the machines are in cycle and when they are not in cycle, and what is causing the machine to slow down. While most companies believe they are operating to their full capacity, it turns out that they are in fact, far from it.  MERLIN OEE will show you that there is always room for improvement, and you will always be able to operate faster, and more efficiently, than you already are.

• Improve Uptime
  • Minimize downtime due to unforeseen breakdown
  • predict when a machine will fail
  • Online diagnostics to get the machine back up and running faster
• Reduce Costs
  • Embed maintenance records and alerts
• Improve Profitability
  • Analyze up time for hidden capacity
  • Identify bottlenecks to improve throughput
• Improve Quality
  • Links to quality control
  • On machine inspection and in-line correction
• Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE)
  • OEE = Availability * Performance * Quality
  • = % Utilization * % Std Rate * % Yield
  • Shows group or plant output as a % of maximum capacity
  • World Class = 85% (=95% * 95% * 95%)

There are several advantages of the “Automated Approach”. By having the machines do all the data collection work and by continuously running non stop, this now frees up your valuable time, and you can rest easy knowing that your machines are running to the best of their ability and generating income.  Some of the advantages of the “Automated Approach” are:

• Automated data collection from machine
• Accurate and objective information
• Not reliant on operator
• Down Time Log- detailed to the second reporting all down time with reason codes
• Historical data for analysis
• Visibility of machine performance in real-time
• Proactive alerts rather than reactive
• Leading OEE Metrics, automatically
• Minimize “Cultural Impact” on operations
• 20% of cost of PLC based solutions
• No need for barcode scanning (optional)
• Connect to any machine
• Supports OPC standards
• Supports MTConnect standards
• Event monitoring
• Send job/shift completion results automatically back to ERP/MES
• Complement and add value to your application

If you can MEASURE it, then you can MANAGE it.  If you can identify the constraints (where the bottlenecks are happening in the production process), then you can improve your throughput, and thereby increasing your overall profitability.

• Identify Constraints
  • Production Counts
  • Scrap and reject counts
  • Run/cycle times
  • All by shift, work order, and by products
• Improve Throughput
  • Find the hidden capacity
  • Quality improvements
• Increase Profitability
  • Focus on bottleneck throughput
  • Accurate data allows for improved employee decisions

We believe connecting the assets of production and reporting capacity utilization in real-time is as logical as connecting management via smart phone!

All in all, Memex knows manufacturing.