Luxottica Sees Greater Operational Excellence

Luxottica is a global designer, manufacturer and distributor of fashion, luxury and performance eyewear. They produce many popular brands, including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Polo Ralph Lauren, Versace, Bvlgari and Chanel, among others, in 10 facilities around the globe. Together, those sites produce more than 50 million units distributed to 130 countries on five continents, achieved by coordinating nine logistics centers with 30 commercial branches. This infrastructure enables Luxottica to support every major eyewear market on the planet.

 

 

 

Interestingly, a key aspect of their quality control (QC) process was being performed visually by assembly-line workers, which was time consuming and sometimes inefficient. The management team sought to improve efficiency by automating this process to reduce the reject rate. The objective was to improve the efficiency of the QC process to lower costs. The only question was how Luxottica could meet this challenge while keeping pace with steadily increasing demand?

 

“We sought a new manufacturing solution to replace our custom, legacy system to improve overall equipment efficiency (OEE), increase operations visibility, elevate quality and achieve higher manufacturing operational excellence,” according to Andrea Gallina, plant manager at Luxottica.

 

“With nearly an infinite combination of lens colors, shapes and finishes, we needed a robust, highly integrated solution to monitor production and quality,” explains Gallina.

 

To spell out the metrics specifically: At Luxottica’s Lauriano plant, 350 different varieties of lenses are produced on dozens of machines, including 19 for molding, three for coating and 24 for lacquering. The finished product then travels through 21 QC lines for evaluation and packaging. A single miscalculation can ruin an entire batch. Scrap must be carefully monitored; with such costly materials, reducing waste is essential.

 

 

 

Luxottica selected Hermes Reply as its Systems Integrator to implement Apriso’s FlexNet Production and Quality solutions at its Lauriano plant. Following a successful deployment and test run, FlexNet is now live, beginning a new era of manufacturing operational excellence for Luxottica.

 

Their new solution provides Luxottica’s plant with full traceability, from raw materials all the way to distribution. “Not only do we now have complete visibility and control over every stage of production, but we can also see details about our operations for any given phase or time frame,” comments Gallina. “FlexNet gives us access to detailed, real-time reports. Activity can be from a shift, a day, a week or more. We can monitor, trend and analyze specific areas or machines for continuous improvement and best-practice enforcement.”

 

Many of Luxottica’s production and quality processes have now been automated, which has led to faster, more accurate access to quality data. Consequently, planning and execution of quality improvement processes can be performed faster, resulting in improved operational performance.

 

 

The ability to better monitor scrap has allowed Luxottica to keep a laser-focus on its bottom line. The system can now analyze and report on waste with greater precision, from each machine operator, and by activity. This data helps to determine what work centers are most productive while highlighting potential trouble spots before they become a bigger problem. Near real-time visibility to work in process and scrap rates has made an impact by virtually eliminating errors and improving efficiency.

 

Luxottica’s production processes are now done within a more controlled environment, helping to reduce the likelihood of rejecting work in process. “QC is still done by the workers,” explains Gallina. “But now, those workers have fresh eyes and vastly simplified jobs. Best of all, our QC is now cross-referenced with production and scrap reports, ensuring 100 percent accuracy of products leaving the plant.”

 

 

As a direct result of reducing waste and better controlling their production processes, operational efficiency has improved. Delivering products “right the first time” with higher quality yield consistency has extended the benefits and value of Luxottica’s manufacturing operations management solution to other facilities. As Gallina continues, “Plants receiving our products used to perform time-consuming QC checks themselves before starting assembly. Now, thanks to our Apriso solution, we can better guarantee the quality of the delivered lenses. The other plants quickly recognized this improvement, so eliminated their quality checks at the receiving phase.”

 

Most importantly, Luxottica has now doubled its production volume with higher quality by automating key quality control functions, eliminating virtually all manual processes – and reducing waste while doing so. 

 

“With greater real-time visibility to operations, we can clearly see and manage our production and quality processes faster, resulting in improved productivity, higher quality and greater overall manufacturing excellence,” says Gallina.