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Huge cost savings for hosico in automated disc management system
When a new product provides a low cost solution to a problem that is costing hours and hours of lost productivity, any business would have to seriously consider it.
For machining, tooling and moulding company Hosico Engineering in Braeside, Victoria, it recently took a week to find an archived job from seven years ago. Today, with its newly installed disc management system, called the Imation Disc Stakka, it only takes a few seconds to find CDs stored on the system.
Hosico helps design and manufacture plastic moulded components for the automotive, biomedical, whitegoods and a range of other industries. Current projects include the grill for the Pontiac GTO, the E-tag for toll roads and carding machines for banking terminals.
CDs that contain computer aided design (CAD) technical drawings and specifications have become an integral part of Hosico's business. Where once engineering designs were on paper, everything is now handled and processed electronically.
Stan Vandermerwe (seated) and Peter Hof
with their Imation Disc Stakka
Peter Hof, Hosico's managing director, admits that the way they used to archive past jobs was fairly archaic.
“We do have a special area for archived material, however because we've been going 27 years, it's quite extensive. From the pre CD-burner era we have DAT tapes and over the past few years have built up quite a collection of CDs,” said Mr Hof.
“The CDs are stored in plastic wallets in lever-arch files and with an ever-growing collection; it is taking longer to find the required CD.
“Finding the right CD was totally reliant on it being labelled and indexed correctly before it was filed in the archives. Unfortunately, human error often meant mislabelled files, which down the track would mean hours of trying to find the right CD.”
Hosico's CAD room has now installed an Imation Disc Stakka, which holds up to one hundred 12 cm discs and is linked to a PC or Mac computer via a single USB connection supplying both power and data. Units can be stacked up to five high to create a tower that holds 500 discs without needing additional cables or desk space. The system can be expanded so that up to 50,000 discs are managed from the one computer.
Stan Vandermerwe, senior designer in Hosico's CAD department, said the potential productivity savings are enormous, not just in searching for archived discs, but in labelling.
“It's so easy to use and will eliminate any mislabelled CDs because the OpdiTracker software that comes with the Disc Stakka does it all for you, capturing everything that's on the CD and storing it on the database,” said Mr Vandermerwe.
“To file and archive CDs, we just put a disc in the CD drive of the computer and the entire disc content is captured automatically.
“When we come to search for data that is on the CD, we can go through Windows Explorer, type in a key word and the system brings up a list of everything with that key word in its title. We then select the file we want, double click on it, and out pops the CD from the Disc Stakka. It works beautifully.
“With files getting larger and larger and paperwork becoming obsolete, keeping track of the data is becoming much more important. It is crucial that the data is kept in a secure environment and can be accessed immediately.
“The Imation Disc Stakka and OpdiTracker software will help prevent lost and damaged discs and while it will increase our productivity, it will also eliminate the frustration in looking for misplaced and mislabelled discs,” he added.