Ege Carpets’ doubts were put to bed
– A demand-driven and innovative collaboration
Danish carpet manufacturer Ege Carpets has gained a data-based overview of errors and defects in their production.
In a manufacturing company like Ege Carpets, which has many links in its production, production lines can easily come to a standstill. These stoppages can be costly in terms of efficiency, carbon footprint and finances. With the implementation of REEFTvisual, Ege Carpets now has the answers to essential questions about their machines such as: When does the machine stop, how long does it stop, and what can we do to prevent it from happening again?
Ege Carpets is a Danish carpet manufacturer with four branches in Denmark. Ege Carpets primarily produces carpets for the contact market such as hotels, offices and cruise ships. Ege Carpets has sales offices all over the world, including Australia, USA, Dubai, Asia and various European countries
Ege Carpets’ doubts were put to bed
Despite a growing need to digitize significant parts of production, there was still some doubt and skepticism among employees and managers when the decision to implement digital data collection was made.
”When we started digital data collection five years ago with a system other than REEFT, there was some skepticism from employees. They were nervous that it was just monitoring their work and efficiency,” says Morten Due, Project Developer at Ege Carpets.
This skepticism was dispelled when Camilla Blicher Skov Andersen, Sales Manager at REEFT, visited Ege Carpets and gathered the employees for an introduction to the system.
‘’It definitely helped demystify some of the reservations you might have. It was a good way to get the employees integrated and engaged, and they suddenly came up with some ideas themselves,’’ Morten Due continues.
Flemming Thonesen Kilde, department manager for gluing at Ege Carpets in Gram, also saw how the employees became more and more familiar with the system:
“Over time, the employees could see that it made their everyday life easier, so they didn’t have to deal with the frustrations of: Why does this happen again and again?”, says Flemming Thonesen Kilde.
At the same time, several department managers, such as Pia Knudsen, department manager for the dye works in Gram, did a lot to familiarize employees with the system:
“We have done a lot to make it clear that it is not monitoring of the employees, but simply monitoring of the machine. For example, if we have a machine that stops, we get an answer as to when it stopped and for how long. And that’s a great help for the employees.”
The need for optimization
As Ege Carpets is constantly trying to optimize and improve their production, the need arose for a digital data collection solution that could solve the problems with production downtime.
Ege Carpets is very aware of the competitive situation in the market and how they as a Danish company can create a competitive advantage.
”Since we produce in Denmark, it’s not wages that we have to compete on. It’s efficiency. Data collection is therefore a good tool for competing on that parameter,” argues Morten Due.
A collaboration that pays off
Flemming Thonesen Kilde talks about a good collaboration between Ege Carpets and REEFT:
”The collaboration works well. REEFT is service-minded and good at listening to our needs. They have customized the system to fit our specific demands, and we have already added another module compared to the first one we started with. We can be allowed to develop with the system”.
Morten Due also expresses satisfaction with the collaboration:
“It is clearly the service from REEFT that has made us feel really comfortable with the system from the start. They are present, available, responsive, innovative and always interested when we have new ideas or needs. Then they show up at our offices or we meet online,” says Morten Due.
