Northern Hi-Tec Ltd, a Lancaster based electronics design and contract electronics manufacturing company introduced a lean manufacturing programme in early 2008.
Gary
Hewitt, Managing Director takes up the story, "Our business has been
trading for over 25 years. However, we felt it necessary to take a
fresh look at how we both designed and manufactured products. The
increase in global competition over the past decade has meant that our
industry has been slowly ravaged by companies operating in low cost
geographies and as a result we needed to find a fresh competitive
advantage.
Like a lot of companies we started the lean journey a
number of years ago but as time went on and the initial focus was lost,
we let the benefits of the programme lapse. To re-invigorate the lean
programme we felt we needed help from a specialist to
both guide us on the way forward and help us create an environment of
sustainability.
After a comprehensive search, we selected Aster Training because of their excellent lean manufacturing credentials in our industry and their ability to offer us on site lean implementation support through their interim management
division. We decided to use one of their interim managers on a two day per
week programme for a total of 15 weeks. We set a number of objectives
with Aster and decided to measure their contribution by
holding a weekly meeting with their interim manager throughout the
duration of the lean implementation programme.
The lean programme
started with an initial appraisal phase. This time was used by Aster to
understand our business and recognise where the largest constraints
were within our company. At the end of this phase we sat down with
Aster's interim lean implementation manager and agreed upon a prioritised programme of improvements.
Introduction of Cellular Manufacturing
After taking advice from Aster, we decided to split the manufacturing operation into focussed cells
based upon a product matrix. This allowed each cell to be managed by a
customer facing management team. I think we had lost sight a little of
what each customer really wanted and had a 'silo' departmental
structure in place operating within manufacturing where each assembly
process worked to their own set of objectives. By creating a cellular manufacturing approach each cell now had responsibility for the whole process across their respective product range.
After the cells had been set up and the roles and responsibilities
assigned we introduced some basic lean manufacturing training to a
number of the key staff members in each cell. This team would later
become our lean steering group. We then set about a major visual
enhancement of our factory. We decided (with Aster's help) to introduce
daily 5S checklists to
both machine and manual assembly areas. We selected a pilot area, drew
up the checklists, implemented them and within a little over 2-4 weeks
totally transformed this area".
Andy Davy, Red Cell Manager
states, "It is quite amazing what can be achieved in a short period of
time when everyone pulls together working to a common set of goals and
objectives".
Hewitt continues, "We also significantly improved
work flow. The products manufactured in our pilot area were reviewed
and standard work principles adopted enabling the assembly stages to be
balanced in line with TAKT time. This allowed us to introduce a
U-shaped production cell incorporating both successive checking and poka yoke methodology.
As a result productivity in this cell increased by over 33%, first time pass rates improved by nearly 10% and all with 12% fewer staff in the cell.
After
this initial success we rolled out the 5S campaign across the site and
created competition between the cells by introducing a monthly reward.
We challenged staff to think 'out of the box' by creating user
friendly, ergonomic work places where everything could be found in 30
seconds or less.
Because the team leaders had been re-energised
and now had a greater appreciation of the 7 wastes, we also made a
number of more subtle work flow changes including the setting up of
both runner and repeater cells and a prototype cell. We marked out
walkways on the shop floor and created dedicated storage areas for raw
materials and work in process.
We also introduced a number of new KPIs including Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).
This allowed us to monitor our surface mount equipment in particular in
a standard manner with regards to availability, performance and yield.
Summary
After
running the programme for 3 months we are very pleased with the
results. Not only has Aster helped us breathe fresh life into our lean
manufacturing programme but I also believe that they have given us
further tools to fight back against low cost offshore competition - all
by working smarter and not harder, which was one of our initial
objectives.
We would highly recommend Aster Interim Solutions to other manufacturing businesses".
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