Oakville, Ontario, Canada -- (ReleaseWire) -- 07/10/2006 --Real-time shop floor technology by Shoplogix is profiled by manufacturing journalist Thomas R. Cutler in the current issue of Manufacturing & Technology.

According to Cutler’s article, Fourmark Inc. is a contract manufacturer of custom injection molding and related services to a variety of industries including food packaging and consumer goods, cosmetics and construction. The company operates a 25,000- square-foot facility in Oakville, Ontario from which it serves markets in Canada and international customers.

Fourmark was in an enviable position; due to demands of existing and new customers, they needed to increase the number of injection molding machines in their plant to improve their capacity. But this rapid growth meant that they began to lose control of their production output. They needed a way to monitor machines on the plant floor to capture the data they needed to understand how machines were operating, and how well each shift was performing. While the company looked at monitoring solutions other companies in the industry were using, they wanted something different. According to Adam Cruikshank, president of Fourmark, “One of the biggest selling features for Plantnode was its remote access via an Internet connection. While I’m away traveling, I can still be on top of what’s happening in the plant.”

This lean manufacturing mechanism by Shoplogix is an intelligent embedded application that integrates with existing production equipment on the plant floor. Manufacturing gained the ability to perform multiple activities such as data capture and measurement, performance analysis, machine alerts and reporting on a machine-by-machine, job-by-job, plant-by-plant or multi-plant basis. The technology has proven effective in improving Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), predictive and preventive maintenance, and quality initiatives across all industries.

Fourmark is now able to track the custom injection equipment, analyzing cycle times versus expectations. By capturing downtime information related to things like color changes and mold setups, and analyzing their scrap rates, the company has been able to identify areas for improvement. This has resulted in a reduction in mold setup times by 30%, and has increased overall plant output by 5% to 10% to date.

ABOUT SHOPLOGIX
Shoplogix develops integrated web-based software solutions that optimize plant floor operations. Shoplogix solutions improve productivity, efficiency, and total operational performance by allowing companies to make real-time decisions that impact profitability while actively engaging employees in the process.

Shoplogix Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Oakville, Ontario, with offices across North America. The company serves a growing base of Global 2000 companies to set new standards for production performance and efficiency in industrial environments.

PLANTNODE
Plantnode is a hybrid web-based software application designed on an open platform to integrate with existing production equipment, analyze real-time performance, and evaluate machine productivity. Plantnode’s built-in intelligence goes beyond raw data collection to provide a fully integrated production and performance management application; differentiated by the ability to compare real-time data against planned estimates. Plantnode is proven to increase Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and enables machine level visibility on a 24x7 basis with automatic escalations and interactive processes to drive higher levels of operational efficiency, quality, and performance.

PLANTNODE NETWORK
Plantnode Network is an enterprise web-based software application that consolidates and analyzes operational data for all Plantnode enabled equipment providing a complete and accurate view of production performance. Plantnode Network’s distributed design provides true enterprise scalability to evaluate real-time performance on a plant-wide, multi-site, or global basis.

Shoplogix
www.shoplogix.com
Hellen Budaya Pileski
hbudaya-pileski@shoplogix.com
Manager, Marketing Communications
905-469-9994 Ext.120