Case Studies and Articles:
United Seating and Mobility
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As with many companies, the challenges facing United Seating & Mobility include increasing expectations of quality products and services, pressure from customers to reduce prices, and competition from numerous competitors in an industry suffering through consolidation.
But by committing itself to becoming lean, United Seating – which produces customized wheelchairs, scooters and other mobility products – is not only surviving, but expanding as other companies fall by the wayside.
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A journey to world class
 The Keg Racking area. |
The Samlesbury brewery, now owned by Interbrew, has used its Asset Care programme as
a key tool for pursuing cost reduction through more intensive use of plant
Samlesbury is one of the largest
breweries in Britain, and has
the capacity in its fermentation
and maturation vessels to
supply a pint of beer to every UK
resident. As a 30 year old site in an
increasingly competitive industry, cost
reduction through improved asset
utilisation was seen as a major issue for
the future, and the vehicle for driving
this was employee involvement
through application of total productive
maintenance (TPM) principles.
However, Samlesbury had previously
tried TPM and failed. One anecdote
told of an autonomous maintenance
exercise which had resulted in a major
item of equipment being covered with
tags which were later just painted over.
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Everything in Pork Pie Order
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Pork pie and sausage roll maker Pork Farms Bowyers has invested significant resource and
time into creating its own tailored shopfloor organisation programme. Steed Webzell reports
Shopfloor organisation is
fundamentally important to a
food manufacturer. It helps to
fuel tidiness, which in turn can
assist with achieving the necessary levels
of cleanliness – particularly important
among suppliers to the UK’s leading
supermarket chains.At the Nottingham
factory of Pork Farms Bowyers (PFB),
the lack of organisation in the
production department was of major
concern.Accidents were also occurring
with some degree of frequency.The
company was convinced the two
problems were related, and that the 5S
technique could help to overcome
both.Alongside this, with customer
audits commonplace, PFB didn’t want
to give any of its prestigious customers
grounds for taking business elsewhere.
In the last two years the company
has made giant steps towards radically
overhauling its workplace organisation.
One of the pioneers of the idea to
transform PFB is manufacturing
facilitator Jenny Perks.A change of role
within the organisation, along with a
three-day workshop presented by
Productivity Europe at a nearby
company in November 2000, convinced
her, along with the company’s new
general manager, that there would be a
lot to be said for deploying 5S at PFB.
“We knew it would be hard to build
without the use of 5S as a starting point
and a foundation,” she says.
After the workshop, Perks set about
creating a promotional plan, aimed at
informing everyone at PFB, from senior
management to shopfloor operators,
about the plans for 5S. In April 200,
Productivity Europe consultant Paul
Quayle presented his first of five twoday
5S workshops at PFB.Attendance
was voluntary.“I was fairly confident
they would succeed as soon as I saw
who turned up for the first workshop,”
he says.“This is always a good indicator
that a company is prepared to support
the initiative with resource.”
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THE USE AND ABUSE OF OEE
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Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is fast becoming a widely used measure for the manufacturing industry, but it is also one of the more misunderstood and misused measures and causing much confusion.
What is OEE for?
The simple answer is “Improvement”. OEE is an improvement measure and is used as part of the improvement cycle. Unfortunately, much is made of the 85% ‘World Class Standard’ an arbitrary target found in the original TPM literature. Not only is this target out of date (Nissan in Sunderland are running welding lines at 92-93% OEE) it gives the wrong message. A customer has no interest in your OEE – that is an internal measure which relates to your efficiency and costs. The customer is far more interested in a measure such as On Time In Full (OTIF) i.e. did I get my order? Running a manufacturing business on an arbitrary efficiency measure rather than a customer satisfaction measure is a recipe for disaster. The best use of an OEE target such as 85% is to recognize that if you are reaching that level and the customer is still not getting his orders on time, then you may have a capacity constraint.
OEE does not tell us if we have a problem, the customer does. What OEE does do is help us analyze the problem and make improvements. This is why Toyota uses it as a spot measure on a particular machine where there is a capacity or quality problem. Calculating the OEE of anything other than a discrete machine or automated line is pointless; we have far better measures of the efficiency for a factory or department as a whole.
OEE developed out of the need for improvement groups to have a way of measuring and analyzing equipment problems as part of their Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control cycle. OEE defines the expected performance of a machine, measures it and provides a loss structure for analysis, which leads to improvement. It can then be used as a tracking measure to see if improvement is being sustained i.e. if control is sufficient.
What does OEE measure? ...
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PRINTS OF DARKNESS: THE CHANGING WORLD OF PHOTO PROCESSING
No industry has experienced more evolutionary change in the last few years than that of photography. Over a five-year period, the photo production process went from 90% optical to almost completely digital, and it was no easy task for photo labs to adapt.
See how H&H Color Lab of Raytown, MO, saw the change coming and recognized that not only was the world “going digital,” but also that the pace of photo processing would increase significantly and that customers would need to be far better serviced.
KEEPING THE PRESSES ROLLING, MORE EFFICIENTLY
Don’t think "lean" methods are just for businesses associated with manufacturing. They aren’t. And there is no better proof of this than North Jersey Media Group (NJMG) and the half-million dollar savings - minimum – it achieved from Lean Office techniques in just the first months of the program.
IT'S A MIRACLE!
Ping Golf’s lean journey began with a seemingly unreachable goal: to continue producing the highest quality golf clubs in the industry, while building and shipping these custom fit clubs within 48 hours of receipt of order. It was certainly a formidable goal, one that might just take a miracle to accomplish.
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Case Study Purpose
If your organization has been successful implementing Lean, your story could help another organization get their program started or moved to the next level. With so much working against manufacturing today, it is important that the manufacturing community work together to share learning, experiences and "next step" ideas to ensure U.S. Manufacturing remains a strong and vital part of the global economy.
The purpose of a Productivity Inc. case study is to highlight successful Lean improvements in order to provide insight to other organizations attempting to implement Lean in their own facilities.
In each case study, we encourage clients to speak frankly about their Lean improvements, and to describe in detail (by qualifying and quantifying) the challenges they faced and the achievements accomplished.
These “success stories” will be posted here for others interested in Lean to review.
Through exposure to these case studies, organizations attempting to implement Lean will gain an understanding of what is needed for a successful Lean improvement effort to take shape in their facilities. They will understand how their peers have used the techniques of Lean, how to get buy-in from leadership and associates and how to overcome issues and obstacles encountered along the way.
And your organization will be positioned as having the foresight to seek strategic methods to enhance productivity in order to help keep operating costs down, be more competitive and offer more value to their own customers.
What are we looking for?
Simply, we seek interesting accounts of clients who wanted to significantly improve the way they conduct business and who found dramatic success through Lean implementation. The ideal client exhibits excitement and much gratification over their program and is genuinely committed to pursuing further continuous improvement.
Selection Criteria
Case study candidates are selected for participation in this program due to their:
The Process
Once your case study is approved a Productivity Staff Writer, will make contact to begin the process. The final case will not be published anywhere without your review, comment and final approval.
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