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 it had 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.
Customer (International Food and Vitamins high prestige Manufacturer - in File for References)
Concern:
The set up times are too long in packing machines - We are not delivering Product on Time
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.
1,400% ROI - Return on Investment - Year after Year
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.
