I firmly believe that being one of the Shop Floor Top Tens, we can help manufacturers become one of the Top Tens in their industry,” states Edward Dickson, President and CEO of Tutelar Technologies.

The North American shop floor tech solutions provider has redefined the manufacturing arena with its cutting edge Ujigami Product Directed Manufacturing System (PDMS). The system provides advanced Artificial Intelligence capabilities to the manufacturing environment combined with Industry 4.0 ability to connect to every device and machine to empower manufacturers with the methodologies and tools they need to beat the competition.

With Ujigami, Tutelar has created a manufacturing system where employee knowledge can be retained and continually leveraged on the shop floor. The Ujigami software can connect and control all equipment on the shopfloor with its Artificial Intelligence, advanced mistake-proofing, warehouse management, and management reporting capabilities. Whatever the product, Ujigami can coordinate, control, and report on all related manufacturing and warehouse operations, from dock to dock.

Powering the Next Generation of Shop Floor

Having dominated the shop floor for over three decades, Tutelar Technologies has been delivering IIoT systems well before the term was coined. This is why the company is highly particular in seeing the promise of IIoT extend past new equipment and into legacy machinery. In order to maximize overall performance, Ujigami provides a true device-agnostic solution that can control all plant-floor equipment—new or old—to create a comprehensive, integrated manufacturing environment. The system is quickly configured to deliver world-class results without requiring programming, advanced technical knowledge, or extensive training. In addition, no specialized devices are required to manage the operations on the shop floor; supervisors and managers can access Ujigami via any browser-based device to observe and control their manufacturing from anywhere in the world.

To that end, Ujigami was implemented at a very large engine re-manufacturer in the Midwest, who re-builds automotive engines for secondary markets—cars, boats, and warranty replacements. The company wanted to empower its shop floor operators to take charge and improve productivity, to get more engines out the door at a higher rate per day and at a higher quality rating. The client brought in Tutelar, who worked with the local team to set up Ujigami and integrate existing equipment and manufacturing lines to create a higher level of interaction between operators and machines. Ujigami also provides greater control over the equipment and devices, making sure equipment is set up automatically and processing correctly—enabling and disabling the tools to make sure that they run only when needed and by certified operators.

Ujigami also analyzes the results of each of these processes, to verify that they met industry standard specifications. In essence, Tutelar provided a solution that was able to take the complexity out of the hands of the operator and increase productivity by over 20 percent. Quality defects became a thing of the past, to the point where their customers’ Supplier Quality engineers were extremely impressed and recommended them for new business.

Ujigami—A Byword for Operational and Functional Excellence

Purpose-built and with a history of demonstrated on-site success, Ujigami has been developed with the shop floor as a top priority. It eliminates special cause variation and includes both Behavioral Mistake Proofing and Technical Mistake Proofing of all product and process requirements to ensure each part is manufactured to its unique specifications prior to releasing the part for shipping. All manufacturing and warehouse activities are managed through a direct machine and operator control to ensure the highest productivity and quality.

Ujigami’s latency to respond to plant floor activities is measured in milliseconds—fast enough to keep pace with the most advanced PLC and equipment. Operators and machines don’t waste time waiting for the system to store data or determine the next requirement. Additionally, Ujigami software is completely device agnostic—with the ability to control all plant-floor equipment to deliver a comprehensive, integrated manufacturing environment. Customers see an immediate return on investment, thanks to Tutelar’s team, which has real manufacturing experience with a passion for manufacturing excellence.

It is no surprise that Tutelar has developed new ways to accelerate and elevate the capabilities of available technology and devices. To highlight the advanced mistake-proofing that is possible by adding Ujigami to any device, Ujigami now includes a zero defect vision camera solution using just a standard webcam. This ensures that operators are doing the right thing at the right time. It can be implemented in many use cases, such as verifying torque fastening, where the webcam enables Ujigami to see that the operator is about to fasten the correct bolt in the correct sequence. The system enables or disables the torque tool to ensure that the operator cannot make a sequence mistake. If the operator tries to run down the wrong bolt, the torque gun won’t run, and Ujigami automatically guides the operator to the correct fastener.

The inexpensive webcam solution can also help with kitting and packaging to ensure operators select the right parts and put them in the right position in a kit. Ujigami can visually verify if an operator is picking the correct parts and putting them in the container. Not only can this ensure that each kit gets the right parts, but it can also check if they are in the right spot in that kit. Ujigami can thus move beyond human reliability to minimize mistakes. The Ujigami system can interface with any device or machine to oversee and control the process to prevent it from moving forward if an issue occurs that is not corrected.

I firmly believe that being one of the Shop Floor Top Tens, we can help manufacturers become one of the Top Tens in their industry

Innovating Manufacturing to Ensure Maximum Success

Always on the lookout to simplify tasks for operators, Tutelar is continually working with customers to better understand their needs from the shop floor perspective. In doing so, Tutelar’s goal is to elevate the performance of each organization with new features and integrations that enable better communication and control among the teams and their machines on the shop floor. The company has also created the Ujigami Visual Management Center, to coordinate the daily, weekly, and monthly reviews, tasks, and results required by leading manufacturing companies. Needless to say, a large number of Tutelar’s Fortune 500 customers are taking advantage of Ujigami’s flexible architecture, robust performance, and ease of use to standardize their manufacturing operations globally. Tutelar has partnered with a worldwide technical services provider and has established a local presence in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Middle East, and Oceania—with over 8,000 technicians in more than 180 countries providing a local presence with support teams that understand the different languages and cultures .

Driven by global supply chain challenges, Tutelar has also been a key enabler for its customers to reshore manufacturing back to U.S.- based facilities. Ujigami’s reputation for effectiveness and success among its customers gives Tutelar and its users a competitive advantage. The ability to responsively provide high-value products with zero defects on time at the lowest cost is a result of this quality partnership, and that is what the company provides for each manufacturing organization. Moving forward, Tutelar Technologies is excited to be a part of the migration from present manufacturing methodologies and continues to help clients adopt new technologies to propel them into the future