Lenovo needed to manage the production of the ambitious Motorola Razr with its folding screen, zero-gap hinge, and miniaturized design. The status quo combination of AOI, manual inspection, and functional test stations could not track process shifts causing downstream problems. COVID-19 travel and supply chain interruptions added communication challenges for the globally distributed team spanning three continents.
Lenovo deployed Instrumental stations at key assembly states from development through production, with over 200 monitored defect types and 58 live intercept tests running inline. The system integrated with Lenovo's MES to enforce unit routing and push test results into production metrics. AI-powered real-time inspection intercepted defective units upstream before expensive components were added, and Pareto reports helped the team prioritize the most impactful process improvements daily.
Lenovo achieved approximately $1 of per-unit savings through a combination of hard and soft ROI. Instrumental intercepted approximately 4% of units for repairable defects upstream, preventing nearly half of preventable rework. The average cost of rework was driven down 60% through data-driven process improvements. When demand grew during COVID-19, Lenovo quickly brought up two additional lines and used Instrumental's AI to ensure they ramped at the same quality level.
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