MBX Systems Wins 3rd Manufacturing Leadership Award in 4 Years

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., April 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MBX Systems announced today that it has earned its third Manufacturing Leadership Award in four years for a project that enables simultaneous imaging, testing and configuration of hundreds of custom server appliances with disparate final assembly requirements. MBX's winning solution dramatically accelerates manufacturing throughput and order fulfillment, reduces labor costs, and enhances MBX's ability to efficiently produce custom hardware platforms tailored to the needs of individual software vendors and service providers. 

The ML competition, judged by Frost & Sullivan's Manufacturing Leadership Council, is designed to honor companies that are shaping the future of global manufacturing. MBX was recognized in the Engineering & Production Technology Leadership category, joining other winners including The Dow Chemical Company for Big Data and Analytics Leadership, GE Global Research for Internet of Things in Manufacturing Leadership, and The Boeing Company for Mobility in Manufacturing Leadership.

Automated Final Assembly for Custom Hardware

MBX's winning 2016 ML project involves a proprietary software platform developed in-house to support the company's exclusive Forge imaging, testing and configuration environment.

The platform allows a single operator to concurrently manage software imaging, testing and final configuration for any number of hardware systems in the company's main manufacturing facility outside of Chicago and/or in satellite facilities anywhere in the world, even when different units must be equipped with different network connections, software or internal components. It also conducts all verification and quality analysis and reports the results for regular quantitative analysis without operator involvement.

The software works in conjunction with MBX's advanced automation systems and extra-large Super Cell workstations that can be linked together to simultaneously configure and test up to 640 servers at the company's main Chicago plant alone. Remote communication with satellite facilities provides unlimited extensibility for additional unit needs.

The combination of the software platform, automation technology and Super Cell design streamlines the final stages of the manufacturing process while also maintaining quality. One MBX customer slashed final assembly procedures from two days to two hours, including custom hardware configuration for each end user destination.

"Each hardware unit in our custom manufacturing business is built to order, loaded and tested with the customer's software, and customized for the end customer before it leaves our plant. Typically, these final assembly processes must be handled on a unit-by-unit basis with an operator interacting with each unit's console," said Carl Nothnagel, MBX Vice President of Operations. "Automating these processes has shortened final production tasks for faster delivery of finished systems, enabled us to handle larger batch sizes more quickly and efficiently, and increased technician capacity and productivity on our manufacturing floor."

Two Previous Wins

MBX previously was honored in the 2012 ML competition for a proprietary shop floor software and process improvement project that drove improvements in scheduling, quality control and workload distribution. It also received a 2015 ML award for its Super Cell initiative, which increased scalability and leaned operations. Both projects were designed to maximize quality, efficiency and on-time delivery in MBX's extreme high-mix environment, where hundreds of unique server platforms are being produced at any given time.

The company has also earned a long list of other accolades, including 2012 Quality Plant of the Year honors from Quality magazine. 

About MBX Systems

MBX Systems is a leading designer and manufacturer of application-optimized server appliances and cloud-ready solutions for ISVs and service providers worldwide. MBX delivers turnkey hardware systems that are 100% customized to the customer's specifications by in-house platform engineers, while also offering value-added services such as branding, software imaging, regulatory/compliance, global logistics and warranty support to relieve customers of all hardware responsibilities. That unusual range of services, along with award-winning quality, innovation and customer service, has attracted customers in more than 40 vertical industries in the past two decades. For more information, visit www.mbx.com.

SOURCE MBX Systems

Related Links

http://www.mbx.com