Whatever
your industry, product, operation, job, professional practice, occupation,
activity… it can be improved. That is, exactly the premise of Kaizen and
the implementation of Lean Manufacturing.
This constantly renewed philosophy provides a countless number of
techniques. Efficiently applied, those techniques lead all types of
operations to reduce or eliminate all the waste of resources that plague
them.
For
so many years I have witnessed Lean Implementations where people thought
there was no waste of resources or simply no way to improve the process.
Especially those businesses that have been doing well in the past, they
see no need for change… but there sure is. We all have to admit that the
globalization has created powerful, formerly unknown sources of
competition. One of the first industries to realize this in the mid 70’s
was the American automobile industry. That was followed closely but a little too late by the Swiss
watch industry, the German optics industry and the worldwide electronics
industries. At higher or lower degrees, all industries have seen this
happen to them.
As
soon as the American automobile industry became aware that the Japanese
competition was for real, instead of pretending that nothing could happen
to doom their supremacy in the world market, they started thinking of ways
to prevent the industry from vanishing, just as happened to the TV
manufacturers. Today all the factories in this industry have implemented
some form of the techniques of Lean Manufacturing known in the rest of the
world as The Toyota Production System. Thus there is a very important
change in the way they are now doing business compared with the old ways.
I
have seen substantial improvements everywhere. Some of our readers have
been asking me for examples of successful implementations. In most cases,
companies establish a rule in the contract in order for the source not to
be revealed. For that reason, in our examples we will be using pseudonyms
for companies, brands and executives. The true identities will be managed
in a discretional manner with our prospect customers. We also can, in some
cases arrange tours to plants where implementations have been made, so
that our customers can see first hand how their projects can be compared.
Company
XYZ
(International Food and Vitamins high prestige Manufacturer)
Concern:
The set up times are too long in packing machines
Project:
Implement SMED
Kaizen
Development.- Knowing in advance the nature of the problem, we asked the
Continuous Improvement Manager to take some video of the current set up procedure. The time
traditionally used was 3 hours and 25 minutes.
The
team was comprised of some people from maintenance, equipment operation,
Q.C. inspectors, engineering and administration. A total of 19 people
included all those involved in the operation, analyzed the video and took
notes.
They
were taught the SMED techniques and came up with more than 80 very good ideas to
improve the process.
Before
end of the week we had improved it from 205 minutes to just 32. Today,
after implementing new tools, they have broken the 30 minutes barrier.
With continued effort and enthusiasm they are looking at making it in 20
minutes in the near future, I know from my experience it is possible.
Side
effects: The result included also a procedure to empty the bins cutting
the product waste in 85%+ and preventing damage to the equipment that will
extend its life.
Cost
of implementation: Spare parts and accessories represented an investment of
about $40,000 dollars.
Savings
and additional revenue: The company is having savings and additional
revenue just for increased amount of products sold of 5.6 million dollars.
If the profit would only be
10%, they will have a 14-fold return every year for their investment. In
addition, their personnel has an improved morale and are spreading their
enthusiasm all over the plant.
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