Real-time machine monitoring

Enztec, based in Christchurch, designs and manufactures orthopaedic instruments for hip, knee and spine procedures, supplying leading global implant companies as well as producing its own in-house designed product lines. The business operates around 20 CNC machines across two shifts, including mills, lathes and EDM wire-cut machines.

Before FourJaw, Enztec relied on spreadsheet-based reporting to monitor machine utilisation and downtime. While this provided some visibility, the data was not trusted enough to support confident decision-making at leadership level. The business lacked a consistent view of true capacity by machine, shift and product family, making it difficult to separate real production losses from reporting noise.

By installing FourJaw, Enztec has established a single source of operational truth across its CNC operations. The system gives the team real-time visibility of machine uptime, utilisation, downtime reasons and shift performance, enabling production and leadership teams to identify where capacity is being lost and where improvement work will have the greatest impact.

The rollout began with a four-week pilot across five representative machines, including high-value pallet-loaded 5-axis machining centres. Operators used tablets at each machine to log downtime reasons through a simple two-click workflow, while automatic labelling was introduced for recurring events such as breaks and selected setup activities.

Following the pilot, Enztec deployed FourJaw across every CNC machine in the factory within three months. FourJaw is now installed as standard on every new CNC machine commissioned by Enztec.

Since introducing FourJaw, Enztec has increased average machine uptime from 45% at installation to 58%, with recent performance regularly exceeding 60%. Its best-performing machines have reached around 80% utilisation, while key Matsuura MX330 APC10 pallet-loaded 5-axis machining centres have achieved weekly utilisation in the high 80s to high 90s, including one week at 97%.

FourJaw has also helped Enztec identify setup and inspection as major causes of lost production time. On key product families, these categories previously accounted for around 27% of recorded downtime. Following improvement activity informed by FourJaw data, setup time now accounts for around 15% of downtime.

Laura Hill, COO at Enztec, said: “FourJaw gave Enztec a trusted view of machine performance, helping the team move from assumption to action. We’ve seen uptime go from 45% at the time FourJaw was installed to an average of 58% since, and we are now regularly achieving more than 60%, which has had a massive impact on our production capacity, enabling us to deliver products to our customers faster.”

Chris Iveson, CEO at FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics, said: “Enztec is a brilliant example of how UK manufacturing technology is helping manufacturers around the world improve productivity using the assets they already have. By replacing manual reporting and assumptions with objective, real-time production data, Enztec has created a trusted view of factory performance that supports better decisions on the shop floor and at leadership level.”

Enztec is now also using FourJaw’s Planning feature to monitor machine utilisation during overtime shifts and lights-out production, giving the business clearer visibility of unattended machining and extended running periods.

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