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Gates Report
This report is for the plant visit on 4/28/09 at the Gates Rubber Company
Gates Jefferson plant manufactures micro v belts for ford and GM. The product made at this plant is an after market product and sold primarily at O’reillys and Napa.
Production:
Business is pretty good; the current capacity is at 58,000 belts per day, down from 70,000 due to the current economic situation, and they employee about 270 people on three shifts, 5 days a week.
Downtime:  they shoot for, and maintain a 3% or less downtime rating plant wide. First station in the plant was the calendar machine, it is driven by the Rockwell drives and has an Allen Bradley key pad control, plc 5 touch screens control power to the machine and is net worked in, the up time on this machine was at roughly 99% while we were there, this machine is the bread and butter machine, It extrudes the rubber, then it goes  on to the banner table where  it is cut and fuses the rubber back together for the other cells by radio frequency and ultra sonic fusion, no heat fusion, the other types are stronger.
 Maintenance:  techs and engineers are on site at all times, at night they run a smaller crew.
PPS= Practice Problem Solving, this is a part of their maintenance program, they get input from operators and engineers, they also run a maintenance system were work orders can not be closed out without all involved sign off them, they are posted on their communications boards and everyone checks to be sure all work orders have been completed. Preventive Maintenance crews don’t just work on P.M.S., they are committed to getting the P.M.S first then they may be asked to work on design projects or what ever needed when caught up.
Relationship with vendors
Calendar Rockwell automation is used for their main drive system, the maintenance on it usually consist of an outside tech doing thermograph or having Daco check their lines.  They do not keep...