## 5 Case Study  
### Case Study Presentation  
Alpha is a small family-owned business located in an industrial area of a Portuguese city. Its primary activity involves the production of cardboard packaging for the food sector, with a particular focus on manufacturing boxes for the transportation and storage of fresh food. The company operates a production line consisting of several automated machines, yet it has faced recurring issues with machine breakdowns, resulting in frequent production stoppages. Alpha employs a total of 11 staff members, distributed as follows:  
* Management (one person): The owner of the company is responsible for overall management and supervision. While actively involved in the factory operations, he makes strategic decisions and handles administrative matters. * Administrative Department (three people):
* One financial manager oversees the company's finances and cash flow, ensuring that production remains within a controlled budget. * One production planning engineer is responsible for planning production schedules, ensuring orders are met on time and that machines operate within the designated hours. * One marketing manager is focused on brand promotion and customer relations, ensuring client retention and the acquisition of new business. Production Department (six people):
* One production manager (production supervisor) oversees the production line, ensuring smooth operations during the work shift. * Two machine operators operate the machines that produce the packaging, ensuring the production process follows technical specifications and that materials are available. * One maintenance technician (responsible for basic maintenance) is responsible for performing minor repairs and adjustments to the machines when simple failures occur, such as part replacements or calibration adjustments. However, they did not perform systematic predictive or preventive maintenance. * Two production support workers (packers and auxiliary operators) assist with packaging finished products and keeping the production process organized, moving boxes and materials. Logistics Department (one person):
* One driver/logistics manager is responsible for the distribution of packaging to customers and suppliers, as well as managing the flow of materials within the factory. Although Alpha had a functional structure and smooth operations, it faced significant challenges related to machine maintenance. Breakdowns were frequent, particularly with some of the older machines, which experienced unexpected downtimes. The core issue was the lack of predictive maintenance; only mandatory maintenance was carried out, scheduled by the external maintenance company with which the business had a contract. The production manager, together with the maintenance technician, handled the simpler faults, but machine stoppages still occurred unexpectedly. When more severe breakdowns took place, factory production would be interrupted, resulting in order delays, loss of efficiency, and increased costs due to the need for urgent repairs. Without a real-time monitoring system, the factory was vulnerable to unforeseen failures, which led to prolonged periods of inactivity, affecting the company's ability to meet delivery deadlines. This situation became unsustainable, prompting the owner, along with the production manager and the production planning engineer, to consider implementing a more advanced system to address the breakdowns. The inability to predict or even anticipate failures before they caused production stoppages was negatively impacting both internal operations and relationships with customers. As a result, the need arose to seek more effective solutions to optimize the factory's operation and reduce the costs associated with unexpected failures.