The project executed by Team 31 for Southwire Company involves providing a design for implementing an automated talc delivery and detection system, to improve the talc application process, and remove the opportunity for operator related errors in the talc application process. The project also involved assessing the current industry, and the detection methods available for detecting talc on cable cores. Lastly it involved evaluating how the machine is maintained. In the process of assessing Southwire Company as a whole, and the different methods by which the company applies talc to cable, and maintains it, it was determined that Southwire Bremen’s Talc machines were not properly maintained, so in response to this our focus for most of the second semester of this project has been on developing a robust preventative maintenance process. What that involved was first identifying the areas of concern, we addressed this by developing a process inspection that we could use to assess the current state of the talc application process. We then gathered a very robust maintenance plan from the El Paso plant, and compared it to our current preventative maintenance process, and realized that there were gaps that could be improved upon by making a visual preventative maintenance document the focus of our senior capstone. Lastly, we needed metrics to assess the effectiveness of these process related changes, so an overall dashboard, part specific dashboard, and Power BI report allowed for the assessment of the process, and the development of measurable specifications from the process inspection.
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