I was wondering if any of you have been working on lean manufacturing and if so, how have you applied it in your work environment and has it been applied elsewhere?
We’ve been working on lean manufacturing for the last few years. We started by applying the principle inside the engineering department in order to define our working methods and to have references to use when things do occur. We started off simple with documentations to explain our working methods so that we could standardize how everyone in the department works in different products that we make.
Then we developped tools to help us be efficient in whatever it is we were addressing. We schematized the entire process to ensure a rigid ‘Push and pull’ process that keeps things flowing and also to be able to expand upon it if we ever end up having to rearrange the process.
The Production line then started their lean practices, rather then being always on the ‘now’ (always treating everything as urgent rather then acessing) they went through the same process we did and started defining their methods and developing their own tools.
We’re now integrating an Andon system inside the company that will be used to alert and monitor issues while also streamlining our current process. It’s pretty awesome to see all of this being put in place and to have the opportunity to work on it too. There is a lot more to it then simply what I listed, but it is a good summary nonetheless.
When I was working at the Valve company they went that way when we got bought out. It killed our direct sales since our lead time went from being able to send out a valve that day to taking about 6 weeks for delivery.
I saw some videos come up on YouTube about it and there are some items that you will still want to stock, so that your supply does not get to short to be able to complete jobs is what I got out of it.
I would have liked to been involved with the kaizen process more. That is always interesting to me. How to improve the process reduce steps, and make things more efficient.
That doesn’t surprise me, one of the fundamental things when implementing something of this magnitude is to not get ahead of yourself in the process and to ensure that it is working efficiently before implementing it. It took 8 years if not more for us to get where we’re at and we’re still at the starting line if we compare where we’re aiming to be. One step at a time, don’t try to skip steps, it’ll bite ya.
Most companies bring in external ressources to put in place these things and what often happens is these ressources, while having great knowledge of their current situation, have no idea of the situation they are being thrown in. Their biggest mistake is often to think they have it all figured out while ignoring all the ‘flashing lights’ signals that employees are throwing off, thinking they know better.
Had this happen. Brought in a group that spent a year redesigning an exist part of our product. First they created a design our manufacturing couldn’t make. Then they created a design that our unionized field org wouldn’t accept. Then it was cancelled.
