Tarkett Takes Quality Control to the Next Level with GE Vernova

Tarkett is a global production company specializing in flooring materials. One of Tarkett's plants is located in Orzechowo, a beautiful town in the heart of Greater Poland surrounded by forest. Tarkett’s products are used everywhere from the United States, through Europe, to distant Asia. The Tarkett Group plants sell about 1.3 million square meters of flooring materials a day, producing an annual turnover of $2.6 billion euros.

Their quality control process was experiencing delays in information of up to 24 hours, affecting the ability for quick interference in the technological process. Employees were not able to get information on time on how to modify the process to make it more optimal. To avoid further losses in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), the company sought the implementation of new solutions. They worked with GE Vernova partner VIX Automation to implement GE Vernova’s iFIX, Proficy Historian, and Proficy Webspace to modernize and automate the quality control process.

Results from the modernized and automated quality control process include:

After proper inspection of the product, employees performing quality control used to register the defective product on paper logs, which they later had to transfer to the appropriate spreadsheet. This spreadsheet counted the percentage of defective products, products in need of improvement, and products made correctly – converting them to square meters of products. The information about what was happening in the production was sent to the management team after 24 hours. Only after the order was closed did they receive information on how many square meters of defective products the department caught in quality control.

With the help of GE Vernova’s solutions, Tarkett was able to completely replace paper quality control logs and subsequent rewriting of data into spreadsheets. The aim of the project was also to transfer the functions of the control console. The buttons on the console were responsible for handing the boards to the appropriate warehouses, now the whole process can be controlled with touch panels. Using the panels, the quality department employee selects the appropriate defect (if there is one in the product) and decides which warehouse the boards are to be sent to. The signals from the console go directly to the server, which automatically counts all received signals, and creates predefined reports in the hourly, daily, weekly and monthly modes – as well as on demand! VIX Automation engineers, using the capabilities of GE Vernova software, were also able to create an alarm mechanism that informs people managing the production process about defective products, and creates a report, which allows for the implementation of quick decisions to eliminate loss. Tarkett can now utilize predefined reports, or create their own. Thanks to system integrations and additional reports, they can set goals to share defects in orders and perform quality analysis in real-time.

Apart from the quality analysis, they also now have mechanisms to calculate the availability rate. The indicator is analyzed for each position, line, and production shift. It is based on stopping the conveyor belt and information entered by operators. Through this mechanism, they can generate reports including time load control and downtime analysis, and count the production cycle.

Additionally, the application in their plant in Orzechowo has been expanded to include remote access, using Proficy Webspace. This allows access to key information for everyone involved in the production process anywhere in the plant. As a result, decisions that optimize production can be made even more efficiently. With Proficy Webspace, Tarkett has integrated the new systems with the PLC controller already operating in the factory, reducing the implementation costs. Now four multi-functional touch consoles send signals to the virtualized server. The consoles layout had to be as similar to the old electric ones as possible - to make it easier for employees to switch to the new system. GE Vernova's software also correlates with existing factory warehouse systems to achieve maximum data integrity.

VIX Automation - Distributor of Proficy Software and Services for 20 years for Polish market. Science 2022 also for: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The mission of VIX Automation is to help industrial plants in the continuous improvement of production processes using proven IT solutions.

The company focuses on providing customers with the top-quality services, thus establishing the foundations for long-term business relationships.