ULTRAFIT CASE STUDY

The Product: Tube and Pipe Bending and Fabricating
Location: Mississauga, Ontario.

Project Goals
Achieve major reductions in the following:

• distances traveled
• non value-adding activities
• manufacturing lead times
• reduce in-process and finished goods inventories
• implement one-piece flow
• implement quick changeover on the tube bending equipment.

These are challenges today’s manufacturers face every day; not just to enhance the bottom line, but in order to survive. In fact, speed and responsiveness might well be the currency of the future, and to have it, means proper positioning now.

Until Recently this company was a typical batch manufacturing company, where machinery required to complete the process was located in different areas of the plant; tube bending in the bending department, tube-end sizing in the end finishing department and welding of brackets and flanges to tubes in the welding department.

Long changeover times on tube bending equipment meant the manufacturing department produced parts in batch quantities. In some cases orders were batched together for two-week periods or longer, to be run during the same set-up.

This practice created a need for higher levels of finished goods inventory to create a safety stock of parts and prevent shortages at shipping resulting in:

• increased inventory required
• more floor space consumed for both finished goods and work in process
• inability to meet customers requests for short lead-time

Taking the Lean Approach
Initially this company set out to effect improvements internally, however, managing the change generated only limited success and it wasn’t happening as quickly as the team had hoped. Management decided an outside pair of eyes might help to expedite improvements, and called in Lean Manufacturing Solutions Inc. a Hamilton based consulting firm to train the teams in Lean Manufacturing concepts and methodologies and to facilitate the teams throughout the change process.

Shop floor employees and support personnel from scheduling, supervision, engineering and maintenance came together to look at processes and break them down into components. The team measured and mapped the manufacturing processes and used a video camera to record an actual product changeover on the bender.

Results Achieved

Other Changes
Initially, a manufacturing cell was created to comprise bending, end finishing and welding. By eliminating the work-in-process inventory created by large batch flows, the team was able to fit the new cellular production layout into the same area, and use less floor space. The production line was balanced and moved to a one-piece flow where downstream operations pulled production through the cell, rather than allowing faster operations to work ahead and create inventory traffic jams. Communication improved and the work team cross-trained each other to facilitate job sharing and rotation throughout the day.

Set-ups are now faster and more consistent yielding higher machine utilization and a reduction in both set-up and production scrap. Reduced set-up time also enhances manufacturing flexibility and allows a greater number of different parts to be produced each day. This reduces the need for ‘safety stock’ inventory and improves responsiveness to customers needs.

Net Results
“We have a great group of employees who rose to the challenge put before them”, notes Don Hockin, the company’s President. “Our next objective will be a push toward a make to order environment, without finished goods inventory. While this might seem a lofty goal, I am confident in our team’s ability to meet the target.”

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MELET CASE STUDY

The Product: Plastic Parts and Products
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

THE COMPANY
Melet Plastics Inc., designers and manufacturers of a variety of custom and proprietary products, including folding aluminum mobility canes for the sight impaired.

THE CHALLENGE
Decrease inventory levels, eliminate unneeded equipment, furniture and materials and improve key performance indicators.

THE PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• Reduce distance travelled and space consumed by 50 percent
• Reduce excess inventory and implement a pull system for molded plastic parts
• Reduce overall process cycle time by 50 percent
• Remove unneeded equipment, furniture and materials from the work area
• Implement 5S & visual management
• Implement one-piece flow

MEASURED RESULTS
The Kaizen blitz team studied the value stream, coming up with times and distances for each step and observed a need to:

• Reduce the distance traveled and time wasted through the entire process by setting up a U-shaped cell and having orders delivered electronically
• Set up a visual cue for shipping to take away packaged product
• Remove unneeded items from the work area

WHAT THESE ACTIONS ACHIEVED

• Reduced non-value added process steps
• Cycle timer reduction of 51 percent
• Distance travelled reduced by 77 percent
• Reduced space consumption by 35 percent

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