Success Stories
TECS has had the pleasure of working with many companies to improve productivity and profitability. Read our success stories to learn how our process has made a significant difference and added real value for our clients.
Active Leadership Leads to Increased Output and Profitability
When a $200 Million manufacturer of fabricated metal products contacted us about its inability to meet daily production requirements, as well as volume growth expectations, we jumped in. The product demand exceeded the current demonstrated capacity as well as the need to complete production orders on time in a predictable sequence. Utilizing our process, we diagnosed operational inefficiencies, implemented needed changes and helped the company increase profitability.
Active Leadership Leads to Increased Output and Profitability
Challenge
When a $200 Million manufacturer of fabricated metal products contacted us about its inability to meet daily production requirements, as well as volume growth expectations, we jumped in. The product demand exceeded the current demonstrated capacity as well as the need to complete production orders on time in a predictable sequence. Utilizing our process, we diagnosed operational inefficiencies and helped the company increase profitability.
We found the company’s capacity problems were really symptoms of the root cause of the issues. The real problem was lack of leadership at almost every level. The absence of leadership was the root cause of the lack of execution including goals, measurements, and accountability in the organization. The condition of the company was a direct reflection of the lack of competence and involvement of senior leadership.
Solution
We met with the company’s president to understand his perspective of the issues and their perceived solutions. Then we performed an overall audit of the company’s leadership, functional processes, operations, and value-add proposition. We submitted a written report to the president with recommendations and a proposed implementation plan, including specific actions, timing, impact, and cost.
The week-long audit was performed with two experienced operational consultants. The output of the audit yielded recommendations for critical changes. The company needed to:
- Implement changes in two senior leadership positions, Mechanical Services and Operations leadership.
- Create process documentation for manufacturing operations.
- Develop inventory management systems.
- Implement a daily production planning system.
- Create a production measurement system.
- Adopt Lean concepts on the floor including, one-piece flow, process utilization, 5S and operator training.
- Institute quality control processes and systems.
- Address production bottlenecks in critical operations, including artificial production constraints of one shift production throughout the company.
- Implement preventative maintenance, PM, system for all equipment.
Implementation
With the agreement, active involvement and support of the company president, we collaborated with respective leadership to implement the eight items outlined above over a one-year period of time.
The key to success was ensuring that every major change had a senior leader actively involved in its development and implementation. To ensure we did not introduce too much change, we agreed to an implementation plan and a measure of success for each step of the overall change process.
The implementation of the changes began with a companywide meeting conducted by the president. During the meeting, he outlined the issues being experienced as well as the expectations of changes and performance requirements going forward. This meeting ensured everyone was aware of the problems, the expectations and the fact that the president was actively involved. It also provided an opportunity for employees to ask questions and get clarification.
The next step was addressing the senior leadership issues and shortfalls. The president agreed to immediately replace the head of Mechanical Services and agreed to “resetting of expectations” for the Senior Operations Leader (within the year, this individual also left the company). These two modifications sent the message of “real change” coming throughout the company.
We mapped out the functional leader’s processes and made the necessary changes to ensure we had solid cross-functional involvement in product development, production planning and the launch of new products.
Next, we established a manufacturing engineering department to ensure that going forward, process documentation, workplace layout, equipment utilization, and employee training were an integral part of the overall process for the introduction of new products and processes. This area would be responsible for the overall implementation of Lean in the manufacturing operations, including the introduction of a PM program for all equipment.
Addressing the capacity requirements for the factory was in the short term very simple and effective. The factory had a long-standing practice of only running one shift. One shift is what they used to justify new equipment and staffing needs. After discussing the need to meet production requirements, the team agreed to add staffing and balance production across two shifts. A third shift would be added if needed in bottleneck operations. The next phase of this would be to measure and improve the utilization and output of each operation to ensure we ran efficiently before we ran additional shifts.
Implementing daily production meetings and production scheduling was the next area analyzed. We optimized the current scheduling system and introduced daily production meetings to optimize the process. We then installed a new production planning system. To complement this process, we implemented measurement systems throughout manufacturing operations. This allowed us to effectively measure and report out at daily production meetings. These changes stabilized production output by focusing on the issues interfering with daily output.
Results
The results of the involvement and active commitment of leadership in the change process were dramatic. The company:
- Achieved production output requirements on a daily basis.
- Increased daily output in excess of 50 percent.
- Reduced excess inventory throughout the company by 25 percent.
- Improved quality, resulting in dramatic reductions in scrap, rework and customer returns.
- Improved factory appearance and workflow optimization.
- Reduced employee turnover and improved employee satisfaction.
- Improved annual profitability in excess of $10 million.
Interested in learning more about how TECS can help your company? Contact us for an initial consultation or read more of our success stories.
Building Capacity Through Strong Leadership, Communication and Measurement
The CEO/Owner of a $50 Million garment printer contacted TECS to help him with capacity issues. According to the owner, the factory was running at capacity with no room for physical expansion or the addition of more production machinery. There was a production crew assigned to every machine to maximize run time. TECS found the real problem was that the senior leaders of the company had very limited manufacturing experience and virtually no exposure or experience with Lean Manufacturing tools. We led the company through both significant and incremental changes to achieve its goals.
Building Capacity Through Strong Leadership, Communication and Measurement
Challenge
The CEO/Owner of a $50 Million garment printer contacted TECS to help him with capacity issues. According to the owner, the factory was running at capacity with no room for physical expansion or the addition of more production machinery. There was a production crew assigned to every machine to maximize run time.
TECS found the real problem was that the senior leaders of the company had very limited manufacturing experience and virtually no exposure or experience with Lean Manufacturing tools.
What the CEO of the company did have was a great working relationship with the employees on the floor as well as a solid understanding and connection in the industry.
Solution
After an extensive tour of the facility with the CEO, we agreed to perform an audit of the entire operation, including leadership, functional processes, and the company’s value-add proposition.
Through the audit, we discovered that the average output of the printing machines was less than 20 percent of the real capability due to downtime issues. We recommended the company:
- Bring on senior manufacturing leadership to replace the current leader.
- Implement a production scheduling and execution system into production.
- Integrate functional process areas, order processing, art, screens, inks, picking and receiving into the production process.
- Introduce communications/coordination into the production process to deal with issues and opportunities on a daily basis.
- Add and utilize measurement systems in the production improvement process.
Implementation
There was no disagreement on the solution needed, only on how fast we could move forward and how to engage the current leadership. The priority was to increase production output while working with the current manufacturing leadership.
- In reviewing production records, the true output of the screen printing machines was less than 20 percent of the real capability. The root cause of this was downtime due to many factors including setups between jobs, poor setup quality, screen breakage, inadequate training of operators, and production supplies delivered to the wrong machines.To address these issues, we agreed to assign two machines to each production crew to virtually eliminate downtime due to machine setups. This also allowed adequate time to improve the quality of the setups. Under this configuration, crews would switch between machines to keep running production and virtually eliminate most of the crew downtime. The crews would be balanced between two shifts and optimize the production uptime and overall production costs.This action eliminated the screen printing capacity constraint but revealed a shortfall in the screen manufacturing process. We now had to produce more screens per shift which allowed us to produce more jobs per shift. To resolve this issue, step one was to add three full shifts of screen production. Step two was implementing automation in the screen production process as well as implementing process coordination with the printing of jobs. The automation process took over 18 months to implement and was covered in the interim with added manning on all three shifts.
- During the implementation of step one, the current manufacturing leader was replaced due to lack of performance and support of the production changes. This replacement resulted in several lower-level moves to address improvements as they were revealed.
- The next item we addressed was significantly improving the production scheduling process. This required the full-time addition of a scheduler and the integration of all support area information into the scheduling process. We performed value stream mapping from the customer order entry process through the delivery of the finished product to the customer.The value stream mapping process allowed us to understand and enter specific information into the production scheduling system that coordinated and expedited the order through production.The production scheduling process set the stage for stabilizing production output as well as identifying specific issues that needed to be resolved to improve the production process.
- The collection and use of real-time downtime data and a daily production meeting was established. Having a daily production meeting along with downtime data allowed the manufacturing leadership to deal with issues in real time and measure the impact. This item required real leadership of the manufacturing process and a focus on continuous improvement as a priority.
Results
By implementing the recommended changes, the company:
- Improved profitability by almost 20 percent.
- Reduced manning over 25 percent.
- Improved production output from under 200 units per hour per machine to over 400 units per hour per machine.
- Met all new business opportunities.
- Set the stage for business expansion into related products.
- Developed a winning team of hourly and salary employees.
Interested in learning more about how TECS can help your company? Contact us for an initial consultation or read more of our success stories.
Increasing Productivity Through Lean Principles and Defined Roles
When working with one or our clients, a $200 Million manufacturer of metal products, we found the Welding Department had specific challenges. Even with three shifts and a total of 75 welders, productivity was not at ideal levels. Leadership asked the TECS team to review the Department’s operating procedures and pinpoint where changes could be made to increase productivity and throughput.
Building Capacity Through Strong Leadership, Communication and Measurement
Challenge
When working with one or our clients, a $200 Million manufacturer of metal products, we found the Welding Department had specific challenges.
The team of welders was asked to MIG-weld parts and components for downstream production processes prior to assembly of the final product. Even with three shifts and a total of 75 welders, productivity was not at ideal levels. Leadership asked the TECS team to review the Department’s operating procedures and pinpoint where changes could be made to increase productivity and throughput.
TECS found the issue stemmed from welders being responsible for their own “changeover” after completing a current scheduled job. This entailed identifying and removing all remaining piece parts from the current job, plus removal of fixture(s) from the weld cell. Welders then had to find the needed parts and fixtures for the next scheduled job and place them in the same weld cell.
This process caused too much time wasted by individual welders looking for piece parts and fixtures during a job changeover. In addition, the placement of piece parts and fixtures within the weld cell varied greatly from welder to welder. Most of the time they were placed in an inefficient productivity manner. Too much walk time, wasted motion or an incorrect layout caused inefficiencies. As one of our consultants commented, “Welders are welders, not set-up/job changeover personnel” and the inefficiencies created by having welders perform this job created a decrease in productivity.
Solution
After identifying the root issues causing productivity issues, TECS recommended the manufacturer:
- Implement a “pre-set” welding concept. When welder “A” finished scheduled welding in their weld cell, they simply moved to the next “pre-set” open weld cell and started welding. This eliminated the need for welders to complete setup/changeover tasks themselves.
- Add one Set-Up person per shift to pre-set the weld cells.
- Reassign two welders each from the first and second shifts to the third shift, equaling out the weld team on the third shift.
- Allocate 28 filled and two open weld cells on the first and second shifts. This allowed for two weld cells to always be open for pre-set or job changeover during non-welder occupation. A Fixture Expert, Material Handler, and newly assigned Set-Up person could then remove and replace piece parts and fixtures from unused weld cells and be ready to assign the next welder to the empty weld cell and start welding the next job.
- Implement a staging area in the center of the department for all materials (piece parts/fixture(s)/hardware/etc.) required for the next scheduled jobs to be installed in an open weld cell by the Set-Up/Fixture Expert/Material Handler team. This Lean concept provided a much smoother and expedient job changeover.
Implementation and Results
Leadership agreed with the recommendations provided and worked to implement each needed change. Once changes were made, the team saw dramatic results, including:
- Welder efficiency and productivity increased dramatically due to the proper layout of piece parts and fixtures in the weld cell. There was less wasted body travel and motion in obtaining piece parts.
- Wasted time looking for piece parts and fixtures decreased. By using the same few personnel to implement changeovers, the process became more efficient due to repetition.
- A productivity metric system allowed leadership to better evaluate the daily output of each welder.
- Within a month of making changes, efficiency gains were dramatic enough that we reduced the welding staff to 67 total. This meant we reduced the team by five weld personnel, which equated to an approximate $250,000 per year saving.
- Quality, visual control, safety and employee morale, also improved due to the changes made.
Interested in learning more about how TECS can help your company? Contact us for an initial consultation or read more of our success stories.