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Our team's many years of experience in projects such as those described below can be applied to helping you identify the opportunities, plan the projects or even lead the implementation. Our approach can also transfer these skills to your team so that you can continue to carry on similar improvements in the future.
Many processes become more complex as they are modified over time. A trained external view can often see these inefficiencies more easily than those who have become accustomed to them. Previous changes range from the simple to the complex. In a simple example, observation of the test times required by a sophisticated electronic functional test set demonstrated that a single employee could operate two test sets simply by turning one so that it would be convenient to reach both sets. This permanently saved the annual operating cost of one highly trained test set operator. In a more complex re-engineering, the inefficiently run warehouses scattered all around the country were consolidated into one single warehouse near the principle factory. Linking of the warehouse management system to the factory resource planning system enabled a single planning organization to optimize the total inventory and production plan. Over the two year period of this project the total inventory of the business was reduced by 50% eliminating the carrying costs on nearly $100 million of inventory.
Through factory layout improvements, changing stocking and assembly sequencing to take advantage of the modular design of a major new product line, the manufacturing interval was reduced by more than 70%. This coupled with other improvements simultaneously being done in the material planning process enabled the order interval of these products to be reduced to less than half of the standard intervals in the industry. This allowed this new product to rapidly gain market share while establishing itself as the most profitable product in this firms line.
Just in time techniques remain a crucial element of competitive manufacturing. Our team has audited existing factories, changed lay-outs to improve material flow, introduced visual control techniques to simplify inventory control on the shop floor, and introduced Kanban systems. In one final unit assembly shop, we increased total unit production by 5 times through application of all of these techniques.
Our team has led the use of outsourcing for a variety of operations: circuit pack assembly, unit assembly, sub-assembly, information system development, process documentation, system documentation and training. In one high volume shop, total production was more than doubled without increasing floor space or headcount by outsourcing circuit pack production and selected sub-assemblies. Continued use of internal final assembly and test as well as thorough audits and process control over the outsourcers improved quality at the same time.
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