This story is for CEOs who:
- Have chaos on the production line, leading to delays and loss of revenue
- Participate in a highly competitive market that demands customization
- Want to increase the time available for value- added activity
The Challenge
The transportation equipment manufacturer was encountering problems up and down their production process in five plants. The CEO charged SGS Maine Pointe to “walk the line” and fix any problems, including engineering, bill of material (BOM), and scheduling challenges. They wanted to reduce stress on the workforce, free up capacity, and provide room for growth.
The five plants had all been acquired over time and had a history of competing with each other. The plants lacked standardization in everything from specifications to materials and flow. Therefore, quality varied greatly from plant to plant. Operators were used to making adjustments to materials on the fly (for example, by cutting material to the length they needed), which made inventory control difficult. These problems were exacerbated by unreliable delivery from suppliers.
Enabling business transformation through standardization of engineering, materials, and scheduling
SGS Maine Pointe:
- Integrated systems across multiple functions
- Evaluated footprint scenarios, including consolidation of sub-assembly manufacturing to free up floor space
- Eliminated significant non-value time and improved safety by having materials delivered and staged at the line, delivering the parts exactly when and where needed
- Conducted geo-mapping of orders by plant, customer, and end user to rationalize order allocation
- Set up a process and dashboard to track production stages and ensure completion before customer delivery
- Reduced time that product sat on the shop floor (dwell time)
- Acted as an accelerator for the company’s IT team in data analysis and creating analytic tools
Lessons learned for other executives
- Customization without standardization of processes, tools, and materials leads to chaos
- Productivity gains lead to faster and greater cash flow
- Reducing variability in production operations ensures that lean and continuous improvement initiatives can be successful
The Results
- 23% increase in throughput
- 40% decrease in dwell time
- 40% decrease in schedule changes
- 20% capacity gain
- Released $5M in cash
- Drove accountability by creating tools to standardize and visualize scheduling, routing, and operations processes
- Performed bill of material (BOM) review
- Improved inventory accuracy
- Led way to future production optimization and standardization
Standardizing processes across multiple plants to support mass customization (CS304)
