9Barista have undergone a 12 hour assessment through ACMI 4.0. Find out what our team, Jaz and Luqman, recommended to help the company take their digitisation to the next level!
Background
9Barista’s patented technology sets its espresso machines apart. At its heart is a unique twin-boiler system that can brew a perfect crema-cloaked espresso. One boiler sets the brewing pressure (9-bar), while the second regulates the brewing temperature (93ºC).
The product was the brain-child of Cambridge engineer, Dr William Playford, who combined his love of a fine brew with his passion for jet engineering.
Business is booming and the 9Barista team is keen to optimise Industry 4.0 technologies to streamline their supply chain and support even higher quality control.
Assessment and Gap Analysis
When our ACMI 4.0 team visited their premises, 9Barista’s top KPIs centred on:
- Cost reduction and cashflow improvements
- Inventory efficiency
- Product quality
- Process quality
- Time to market
In the assessment that ranked 9Barista’s performance against industry best practice, our ACMI 4.0 team found that shopfloor connectivity was a real strength. 9Barista’s team has real-time information about what’s happening on the shopfloor as well as several tools to centrally visualize performance data. This will help push their Industry 4.0 journey further more quickly as the teams have a good understanding of connected technologies.
With strong connectivity on the shopfloor, the ACMI 4.0 team identified several opportunities to enhance 9Barista’s use of Industry 4.0 technologies. There’s real-time monitoring of the shop-floor, but there are opportunities to collect more detailed performance data to streamline and refine processes even further. There is additional performance data that could be gathered from their facility as a whole to give them a more accurate picture of their whole operations. This could also help them to automate more processes, and move basic manual interventions online.
Prioritisation
Based on their priorities and outcomes of the assessment, our ACMI team has advised 9Barista to focus on the following areas to optimise their performance and use of Industry 4.0:
- Enterprise Intelligence – this was identified as the top priority. Moving more administrative processes online would allow the team to automate simple tasks and free up staff to focus on higher impact tasks. A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) could support this.
- Vertical Integration – systems and processes are in place but should be formalised so that data collection on performance and quality inspections is defined before more Industry 4.0 technologies are in place. This will make the integration of new tech and equipment much smoother, and help the team realise return on investment more quickly. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems could support this.
- Horizontal integration – to improve communication across the value chain, 9Barista should look at how they can more closely monitor enterprise process data for areas like supply, purchasing, and sourcing, and centralise this information for their teams.
- Strategy and Governance – ahead of digitising more of their operations, the senior team has been encouraged to formalise their long-term strategy for a Factory-of-the-Future. With a blueprint in place for their digitisation, 9Barista’s team will be able to integrate and optimise any additional Industry 4.0 technologies more easily.
Action Plan & Solutions
Our team has proposed a number of Industry 4.0 solutions that will help 9Barista reach a new level of digitisation, in line with their own priorities, and the recommendations our ACMI 4.0 team has made. These could all drive down costs, increase efficiency, and help the business maintain its competitive edge.
Next Steps
9Barista has successfully applied for an £11,500 grant from the ACMI 4.0 programme towards implementing a new cobot system. Read the full story here >>
Industry 4.0 solutions:
- Bringing more CNC Machining in-house could reduce costs and give 9Barista more autonomy over quality control
- An ultra-sonic cleaning process is already providing a cost-effective cleaning solution. To make this process work even more efficiently, 9Barista is looking to move toward single-piece-flow, and away from batch work.
- A Manufacturing Executions System (MES) could support digitalisation in several areas like planning and scheduling, digitising work orders, standardise working practices, and enhanced performance monitoring. This would provide more shopfloor intelligence and support vertical integration within the business.
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems would give the team a clearer view of their supply chain, improve response times, and could reduce work-in-progress and inventory administration. This would support horizontal integration and support strategy and governance.
- A cobot would also support automation and improve productivity.
“The ACMI team spent a couple of days on-site, learning how our operation works, and were able to provide us with some excellent suggestions on how we could make substantial improvements to our workflow and data management systems.
“Their enthusiasm was infectious, and we’ve been really fired up as a result of their visit. We’re now actively making changes to our organisation, the benefits of which are already clear.”
William Playford, Managing Director at 9Barista
Discover more about 9Barista on their website >>
