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Lean Tools— Finding A Fit
54
IMPO OCTOBER 2008
L ean manufacturing techniques are
being used by many U.S. suppliers
to reduce costs and drive waste
out of their organizations. Because of the
continuous pressure to lower prices, lean
intrigued by the concept of lean manufac-
turing. He and his staff began by reading
many books, visiting other manufacturers
and attending lean seminars. One book
tools such as Kanban, setup reduction, line
balancing, and 5S. The Kaizen approach
of process improvement defines team
boundaries, the sponsor, the project char-
of particular interest was Speed To Market ter, and a method of reporting the results.
manufacturing is one of the first methods by Vincent Bozzone. The book was about Initially, Minster Machine selected six
every manufacturer should employ to be implementing lean manufacturing for job high-priority shop projects for the Kaizen
competitive. shops and made a lot of sense to manage- Team. The team achieved savings or
Proponents of lean manufacturing say ment. The operations staff continued to improvements of 25 to 80 percent on the
that in 3 to 5 years, typical performance learn all they could about lean, however, projects, with an average of 35 percent.
gains include defect reduction, reduced most literature and available expertise Today, Minster does one or two factory
lead time, and improvements in on-time on the subject was related to standard Kaizen events every month. These events
delivery, employee productivity, and products and used examples of the Toyota have expanded beyond the factory floor
return on asset investments. Production System that did not translate and are frequently associated with improv-
So with these kinds of results, why isn’t to the problems with low volume custom ing office (paper factory) processes. The
every manufacturer in the U.S. standing in designed and manufactured machines. processes of lean and Quick Response
line for their “lean conversion?” The prob- They knew lean manufacturing could work Manufacturing (QRM) have also resulted
lem is that while the principles are simple, for them, but could not see how to imple- in organizational changes to align multi-
applying them to hundreds of different ment lean manufacturing the way it was functional teams to the needs of specific
industries, thousands of different com- written in most books. customer segments. Performing these
panies, and millions of different products events is seen as the new paradigm for
and services is quite problematic. Implementation, The Right Way continuous improvement.
The principles are valid but the applica- Kumpf wanted help from someone who
tion must take the following into consid- understood the peculiarities of a custom Finding A Fit
eration: manufacturer. He found that person in To increase or even maintain profitabil-
• Management capabilities. a manufacturing consultant from the ity, many manufacturers are not in a posi-
• Company size in terms of employees CAMP MEP Center (now called Magnet) in tion to raise prices sufficiently to achieve
and sales. Cleveland, OH, Mike O’Donnell. O'Donnell profit goals. Instead, like Minster Machine,
• Level of knowledge. began the process by training 63 people in small and midsize manufacturers (SMMs)
• Sophistication of systems. an overview of lean manufacturing prin- will have to lower costs. Lean manufactur-
• Capital and/or cash flow. ciples in a 3-hour session. After this train- ing is a proven method of lowering costs
• Customization of products and services. ing, 18 people were picked from a variety by eliminating non-value added activi-
of different departments to attend a 5-day ties, reducing waste, and creating flow
Minster Machine- Minster, OH "boot camp" to learn to use the basic tools throughout the company. It is a long-term
Founded in 1896, the Minster Machine of lean manufacturing. These people are plan to streamline your manufacturing
Company has more than 100 years of ”
the “lean champions, and the backbone of company for the future.
experience in developing manufacturing the lean initiative. The implication is that every manufac-
equipment and clutch and brake technol- Most lean programs begin with a Value turer must do every part of the process
ogy for the metal forming industry. Stream Mapping process. Value Stream improvement program, regardless of their
Minster Machine has survived a depres- Mapping (VSM) is the creation of a mate- size and resources. The truth is that there
sion, two World Wars, seven recessions, rial and information flow map of a product are a lot of common sense and useful
the invasion of foreign competitors, and or process to identify areas of improve- ideas in all of these programs, but you
has continued to succeed despite the ment opportunity. Minster Machine must be careful about adopting generic
revolutionary changes in manufacturing. chose to skip this step, because they had approaches.
However, by the 90s, globalization began already identified key waste projects in Minster Machine did the right thing in
to seriously affect Minster Machine’s cus- the value stream. Instead, examining which parts of lean manufactur-
tomers. The customers had to reengineer they chose to begin with ing to apply to their type of business man-
themselves to compete in the global the Kaizen methodology. ufacturing, as well as which tools were
metal-forming markets and wanted price Kaizen is an intensive worth the investment of the employee’s
concessions from their suppliers. No and focused approach to time. More manufacturers, particularly job
longer was it possible to arbitrarily pass process improvement, shops, should follow this example.
on cost increases to the customers every and empowers teams
year. In fact, there was constant pressure to rapidly develop Mike Collins is the author of Saving
to discount prices, which finally led man- improvements American Manufacturing, a comprehen-
agement to the conclusion that they were to specific prob- sive step-by-step strategy that dem-
going to have to find a way to reduce lems in the pro- onstrates how to ultimately become
internal costs and eliminate waste any- cess. Kaizen an organization that will continually
where they could. can employ find new opportunities in today's fast-
Joe Kumpf, director of operations, was other lean changing global environment.
IMPO 0810 Guest Column.indd 54 10/9/2008 11:43:32 AM