The Durban branch of the SAIMC held its August technology meeting on 3 August at the Premier Splendid Inn in Pinetown. The new venue is proving to be a hit, with easy access from both Durban and the upper highway, great food and attentive service.
Paul Sikhakhane of Mzukulu Technologies gave a very interesting presentation on Poka-Yoke implementation on a seat assembly line, from a system integrator’s perspective.
For those who have not heard about the Poka-Yoke quality assurance technique, Shigeo Shingo, a Japanese manufacturing engineer, developed it in the 1960s, with the idea that it would eliminate defects in a product by preventing or correcting mistakes as early as possible. Production flaws or errors are always the primary concerns of any manufacturing endeavour and the use of quality control tools or technologies such as Poka-Yoke are required to maintain a quality level that meets or exceeds customers’ expectations.
It goes without saying that avoiding high costs associated with rework, waste of production material, recalls and tarnishing the company’s image are of paramount importance in any project. System integration involves integrating existing, often disparate systems in such a way that focuses on increasing value to the customer.
Paul took the attentive audience through a series of case studies of the implementation (with the emphasis on the sensors and controllers used) of a Poka-Yoke system on an automotive production line. The first case study looked at an implementation of a ‘pick to light’ system using Modbus, and the second looked at the use of camera inspection as an aid in quality control.
Paul is a familiar face in the industry and at the SAIMC, and is an active member of both the SAIMC and the ISA (International Society of Automation). He is an industrial control systems enthusiast who started his career in 2000 as a trainee process engineer for Tongaat Hulett. After falling in love with process control and learning that his favourite language was fiddling with code, he subsequently changed his career path from process engineering to automation engineering.
He has since travelled the world commissioning plants, and has worked as a process engineer, automation engineer, lead automation engineer, system integrator and consultant. He started his own company, Mzukulu Technologies, in 2014 and is thoroughly enjoying the challenge. The Durban branch would like to thank Paul for his presentation.
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