HUTCHINSON: Performance analysis and traceability for the leader in rubber solutions

‘The Mes Coox Origin solution is installed at several sites and has been selected as the benchmark solution for the PSS business.’

The HUTCHINSON Group, a world leader in rubber and thermoplastic elastomer solutions (precision sealing), is present in many industrial sectors, particularly in the aerospace and automotive markets. It provides standard and customised solutions such as shaped seals.

The latest example is the Hutchinson site in Campo Maior, Portugal, which covers an area of 18,900 m² and is the Division’s second factory for the manufacture of elastomer parts.

While the Campo Maior site already uses the MES COOX solution for a mixing slitting process (deployed in 2020), another major project is in the pipeline.

The OR&BS division, which includes the Campo Maior and Château-Gontier sites, is integrating the ‘one plant concept’ approach: the solutions deployed at the Château-Gontier site are being replicated at the Campo Maior site.

As part of this approach, MES COOX Origin is scheduled to be launched at the reheating centres to replace the existing supervision system, where COOX will be responsible for controlling machine parameters and ensuring traceability, while integrating a number of poka yoke* systems.

In parallel with this deployment, a pilot project will be launched on a moulding press island, where the operator will have a mobile tablet-type solution to control and monitor a set of presses. COOX will handle machine parameter management, production monitoring interfaced with the ERP, performance analysis and document digitisation.

* poka-yoke: Created in the Toyota factory in Japan in 1960, the Poka–Yoke method literally translates as ‘error-proofing’.

It is a continuous improvement technique aimed at preventing defects in any production and logistics process.