Synerject Gains Robust Monitoring Process Through QualiFine’s Integration of Gainseeker Real Time SPC Solution With Minitab

Synerject’s Delavan, Wisconsin-based production facility has built its reputation on its ability to fabricate fine, custom, tight tolerance assembly work and perform testing for its fuel, oil and electronics controls with the reliability of a large-scale manufacturer.  Under parent companies Continental and Orbital Corporation Limited, Synerject supplies engine management systems, modules and components for the marine, recreational, motorcycle and industrial markets. The Delavan facility specializes in engine management controls and fuel injector systems for Evinrude outboard motors and Ski-Doo Snowmobiles under the product name E-Tec Model.  The company also manufacturers assemblies for other OEM customers.

During production, eight test cells or benches are used to calibrate each production injector.  This ensures compliance to customer specifications which affect emissions, run quality and fuel consumption.  The information from these benches is fed into a custom database.  During production of the fuel injector system for a boat customer, one of the test benches shifted causing quality issues that initially went undetected.  It took nearly two days to extract the right data to identify and confirm the problem.

“We were using Excel for about 85 percent of our tester evaluation work and Minitab for approximately five percent,” said Erik Gibbs, Quality Engineer for Synerject.  “We knew we needed a Statistical Process Control (SPC) program but weren’t satisfied with the packages on the market at the time.  We began looking for a solution that would reduce time and give us access to real time monitoring of our manufacturing processes.”

QualiFine caught the attention of Synerject with its field experience and ability to evaluate customers’ programs and seamlessly integrate Real Time SPC solutions with Minitab.  “Jay Bronec visited our facility and reviewed our current system for maintaining the quality of our test benches,” Gibbs said.  “He then tackled the rather daunting task of writing the code and integrating our software programs to allow us to instantly retrieve the information we needed from our database to ensure customer requirements were being met.”

Once the program was installed, QualiFine made several modifications to further the tailor the system to Synerject’s needs.  “Our test cells are stringently controlled for flow in order to maintain customer specifications for emissions, run quality, fuel consumption,” Gibbs said.  According to Gibbs, QualiFine’s Gainseeker SPC integrated system constantly searches for new data being written into Synerject’s eight test cells.  “If a test cell breaches our controls, Gainseeker immediately emails specified engineering and technical personnel,” he said.  “Historical data is also easily pulled from the database for our evaluation.”

With the new integrated solution, Synerject customers are expressing extreme satisfaction that test cell benches are being controlled to a high degree and the manufacturer’s internal capabilities are meeting required specifications.  “We’ve realized a significant time savings,” Gibbs said.  “We’ve been able to eliminate as much as three to seven hours per week from our engineering staff’s work load.  More importantly, we’ve identified several episodes of a bench shifting during production.  Our ability to instantly identify and respond to these shifts has allowed us to avoid situations that would have led to quality issues at our customers’ facilities.”

For Synerject, QualiFine’s ability to evaluate their processes and implement an integrated solution is making the difference by contributing to the high customer service and quality goals the company operates by.  “Our team is very excited about having a robust monitoring process in place,” Gibbs said.   “The reduction in hours means our team now has more time to focus on performing Design of Experiments (DOEs) using Minitab.

“Erik had the time to break away from his busy schedule and attend our Minitab training course in Delavan in July,” said Jay Bronec.    “From my perspective it is amazing how this company has come full circle by using GainSeeker to automate time wasting activities and then invest that time in performing real continuous improvement activities.  This is a perfect example of a win-win scenario - that is unless you are a fan of wasting time and resources.”