Archive

Consultant: Jorge Garcia

Event Description: 3P New Campus Layout

Event Location: Raleigh

Problem Statement:

Analyze the layout of the new campus to increase the probability to satisfy the forecasted company growth and improve production performance.

Background:

With an impressive YOY growth, this company decided to develop a new campus that will allow for continued growth, improve its production process and become a showcase for its customers.

Success Definition – Methodology

A group of critical stakeholders were asked the question, “What should be achieved with the New Campus layout to be considered successful?”. Their answers were recorded and key words were listed as the Success Factors for the exercise.

Each Success Factor was compared vs the others to estimate their relative weight during the decision-making process. Growth (Capacity), Quality, Sustainability, Cost and Flow were the most important factors to consider after Safety.

Product Families – Methodology

• High level map
• Process analysis
• Product analysis
• Matrix created – products to process steps

Baseline – Methodology

Create a graphical representation of the Current State Map (CSM). Using the new campus blueprint, CSM and the Product families, create a scale model of the manufacturing process. Gather baseline data, according to the initial plans for the new campus layout.

Alternatives – Methodology

Create a list of Limitations, Options, Assumptions, Guidelines – brainstorm different layouts. A total of 8 layouts alternatives were created and evaluated.

Layout Selection – Methodology

• Evaluate each Layout Alternative vs the defined success factors.
• Select top 2 Layout Alternatives.
• Combine them by selecting the best of each model.

The next step was to create the best options for Single Place Flow work cells, four Mega Cell work cells and the assembly lines. The best option will be selected based on the initial criteria. Controversial perspectives were discussed and reevaluated.

Future Opportunities

Product standardization – Evaluate the possibility of de-customized some component of company’s products.

Value Stream Organizational Structure – Include Engineering, Solutions and Sales into the cross-functional teams.

Process Improvement:

• 5S
• Engineering and Design
• Visual Management
• Leadership Standard Work (LSW)

Event Location: Hastings, NE

Event Description: (Trans) Daily Management

Problem Statement: One of the presses has performed below expectations at an average speed of 6,900 Sheets per hour compared to a budget of 9,500 Sheets per hour. The current asset availability is < 50%.

Objective: 

• Assess the current health of the press
• Use Lean Six Sigma tools to find the root cause for lack of press speed.
• Clean to Inspect.
• Investigate the failure of the Autonomous Maintenance Program.

TPM (Derrick)/Tools (Travis):

The Results:

• Trained the team on problem-solving techniques
• Inspected and repaired over 25 vacuum/air leaks that are preventing the press from reaching ideal state.
• Started cleaning the delivery and feed section.
• Identified multiple bad components.
• Repaired the delivery gripper release cam screw actuator and controls.
• Color-coded vacuum lines from the pump house to the delivery.
• Repaired foot on the feeder head.
• Created a second revision of the previous Autonomous maintenance program.
• Create a detailed action plan for improvement
• Completed a DOE on Best Run Setting

Event Description: (Mfg) SMED

Event Location: Hastings, NE

Problem Statement: Continue with SMED Certification: The plant has completed several SMED events with little sustainment. The variation in change over times is limiting the business and costing over $250M/year. The lean tools were implemented but the management system did not follow. The press struggles significantly with Make Ready’s. Make Ready times are often greater than 2 hours, while the customer demand requires the time to be less than 45 minutes.

Team:

Objective:

1. Refine the standard work on the press
2. Focus on 1 Pull registration
3. Continue the certification of operators

The team performed 3 Make Ready’s on the press. Seventy-five percent (75%) of the MR time was spent obtaining register, requiring 16 sets to be pulled and various adjustments. Plate changes were completed in less than 15 minutes each time. This was not a representative of the real struggle in performing a full Make Ready.

Results:

The team performed a new video analysis on the press with the emphasis on registration identifying VA versus NVA steps. The team continued to improve the standard work and performed a waste walk identifying Value adding activities in each department.

Event Description: Transactional Mapping – TAP tasks Job Bag & Border Sample Process

Event Location: Kitchener, Ontario

Problem Statement: There is not a consolidated summary of all of the information needed for a production run. Some data is captured on paper forms and other data is captured electronically. There could be 20 plus pages to evaluate a production run. The format of the data does not facilitate timely review and quick conclusions. There is no comprehensive review of the data and we are not learning from it.

Goals:

Improve the job bag effectiveness to: 

• Provide all of the information needed at the production floor
• Collect all required samples for FGPA, customer samples, quality samples, reruns and trials
• Aggregate data collected at each stage of production and make it available for downstream reference

Current State Job Bag:

Data Aggregation – Future State:

• Phase 1: Modify collection forms to collect data rather than check marks
• Phase 2: Move to electronic data collection in Excel
• Phase 3: Collect data directly into Dynamic Documents or into SharePoint

Concerns:

Recommendations:

Consolidate data and information and make it immediately available for:

• Downstream operations to have visibility into problems that have occurred
• RCFA
• Comprehensive overview of a job run
• Trending
• Verification that all quality testing has been performed and the results

Modify current state tabulation logs to:

• Remove standard work from checklist and put on poster
• Change check marks to actual data where appropriate

Eliminate cello and corrugate order forms

Future State Job Bag Requirements

Requirements for data, reference material and obtaining samples

Accomplishments

• Mapped job bag current state
• Created a job bag future state
• Captured improvement opportunities and identified top priorities
• Developed a phased plan to implement improvements
• Red-lined tabulation logs to move away from check marks and replace with data

Event Location: Kitchener, Ontario

Problem Statement: Standard work for PR-01 was drafted during the January SMED event. Focused upon standardization of the process steps leading up to the first pull. The two pressman-feeder teams used different methods from the first pull to running at rate. This resulted in longer make-ready times and MR wastes. The historical operational data does not have sufficient granularity to quantify the amount of this difference on a long term basis.

Meet the team

Baseline Information

Each week this press conducts about 40 M-R’s.

• No current system captures the time for each M-R which is accurate or that can be easily and quickly evaluated. 
• Initially, each teams’ M-R process varied slightly from other teams.

What did we do?

Both teams participated in Lean introductory training which focused upon:

• Forms of waste
• History
• 5-S
• Kaizen

Reviewed and revised Work Instructions

Drafted Gantt Chart

Performed some additional 5-S

Maintenance Team Contribution

Additional hand tools needed to do the job efficiently were secured. Operators were provided with an additional 19mm socket, extension and drive and a new torque wrench (with extension and socket) needed for blanket cylinder.

5-S

Tools on coater following the first 3 S’s.

Author: Tommy Allen

After being involved in 3P and 5S Kaizen events, Lean quickly became integrated into my daily work thought process. I wanted to be able to teach these initiatives to co-workers to empower them to take action into their own hands. Allen Industries is just like any other company, our employees are the livelihood. All of the past success is because of the intelligence and willpower the employees have towards the company to get it as far as it is today. So the real question that I asked myself, why not give the employees the tools to better the work environment?

I began my Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification with the Guthrie Group about a year ago. During this time I took several classes which gave me all of the basic tools to understand the fundamental foundation of Lean Six Sigma. Classes are set up not only to just teach, but have you interact with the process in order to understand clearly. Almost every principle is followed up with a hands-on activity to give you an actual real life application. Something as simple as putting together a remote control car taught me more about Muda than I ever understood by going through actual Lean events. By going through this training, it made me see the waste not only on the shop floor but on my desk, in my car, in my apartment. I have always heard that an employee is blind to their own process until they are taught to take themselves out of it, because you can never see the wasteful tendencies you perform every single day. The reason is because you have never questioned your actions before so it has become your “daily routine.” This training taught me take a different approach to how I work and how I should convince others to work. Waste is everywhere; it’s a Green Belt’s job to help identify that waste and eliminate it.

Tommy Allen receives Green Belt Certification

My Six Sigma Black Belt certification was much different. Ever since Allen Industries began Lean events two years ago, I had always been a huge advocate for removing waste. So it interested me to learn the Six Sigma approach, which opened up a whole new world. By reducing variation, Six Sigma is a much more methodical approach to problems.  Everything can be measured with data. This class was the vital tool that allowed interpreting and dissecting this data in so many ways. Even though there was a great deal of content, the class went at a perfect pace. In every module, there were real world examples along the way that would reinforce the content to stick in your brain. It’s a tool that everyone should get certified on in my opinion. It will be able to save money and improve output in no time. This involved several weeks of classes in which we progressed along the trail of Six Sigma projects. And along the way we were tasked to perform our own project with very helpful one-on-one session. Being a Six Sigma Black Belt means so many things. To me it was very important to be able to teach these philosophies to other personnel within my company. Being able to show them how any process can improve and give them encouragement in their job. I’m not only a much better employee, but I feel personally invested in my work which I hope I will rub off onto some of my colleagues.

Author: Phil Ralphs

 RRS Analysis

• Lean is all about removing waste from the process. Runner, Repeater, Stranger (RSS) analysis will remove excess motion and transportation from your processes. RRS is similar to the 5S concept of storing what you use most frequently closest to you. The products or transactions that you touch the most frequently should be organized in locations that will minimize transportation and motion.
• RRS analysis requires frequency and quantity data for the products or transactions. The data is then analyzed based on frequency and variation in quantity to identify the runners, repeaters, and strangers. The Coefficient of Variation (CoV) is used to test for statistical variation. The frequency and CoV are assigned a weighting and scored. Each product or transaction can then be given a numerical score that represents frequency and CoV. All products or transactions can then be sorted into RRS to reduce waste in the process.

• When Runners, Repeaters, & Strangers are known we can modify our processes to minimize the wasted motion and transportation.
• Scheduling strategies can be created for Runners, Repeaters, & Stranger
  • Implement Kanban for fast moving (Runners) product
  • Look at special order only for Strangers

Author: Joe Costello

Production Preparation Process (3P) or “When the need to do it right the first time means you keep your job.”

When you put a monument in place you better not plan on moving it for a long time. Our team had to locate (4) 30’ wide and 200’ long printing presses.  Each press has support machinery, tooling, and other auxiliary areas that require proper planning (the 1^st time).

In the Lean manufacturing world, “3P” (Production Preparation Process) is a method in which we model a high number of operational layout variations in rapid succession, i.e. PDCA.

Previously, Lean had been largely relegated to fixing existing problems in manufacturing plants. 3P takes Lean principles upstream into the new product development arena and applies them liberally at the point in the process where they can have the most influence on both product and operation.

The 3P process allows you to create a 3-dimensional (scaled) version of your plant which illuminates constraints and under-utilized floor space.  Properly designed raw, WIP & finished goods inventory levels can be allocated and located with an assurance of supporting flow and product velocity (think Kanban sizing).

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One of the greatest attributes of the 3P process is in its ability to view, share and critique the layout in a very inexpensive way and at all levels of the organization. In our recent model, we used fork truck operators to critique the material flow lanes; we used maintenance managers to review the machinery access panel requirements; and, we used the EH&S managers to approve the egress paths & hazardous products storage locations. Operational and transactional staffing (see the Minions) options were reviewed, the machine staffing was defined the number of fork trucks was determined.

The break rooms and bathrooms were moved and adjusted several times all for free!  Everyone in the organization had a chance to contribute their ideas and in a matter of a few days, we build an efficient model that covered the 300,000 square feet of scaled operational areas.

Our client has already put an extension on their plant that doubled the production floor space, they will be installing over a dozen new machines and as you can imagine the flow of the process has to be right the first time.

Why does 3P work?

• Intense cross-functional collaboration
• Product development concurrent with Process
• Rapid learning and Try-storming
• A process that moves quickly through a series of steps that activate our thinking and help us gain
• Understanding as we evaluate and converge upon optimum solutions.

Authors: Lynn Clark & Joe Costello

Recently, I worked with a team who wanted to know what parts of their process were keeping them from achieving the most responsive, most efficient manufacturing plant possible. They had been training their employees and doing several continuous improvement projects and wanted to ensure their efforts were coordinated on the process constraints. 

The cross-functional team was key to the success of this event. Their process knowledge expedited the discovery process. Team members represented operations, Continuous Improvement, and finance. Plus, the entire staff at the plant was very helpful and offered information and their perspectives of the process.

We started with the development of a high-level SIPOC of the entire process, including the front end order receipt and production schedule development process. At this point, most of the emphasis was upon the process steps and key inputs. 

Next key data for each process step was added. Typical data includes; cycle time, WIP, inventories, performance, availability, yield, crewing size, schedules, etc. This data varies depending upon the types of questions you are trying to answer with the Value Stream Mapping. 

All of these inputs were displayed in a single continuous flow with the process steps moving from left to right and the key data posted directly below the process steps.  Ancillary support data, such as production schedules, were posted on the wall for easy reference.

• The blue stars represent process improvement opportunities

Data was extracted from various systems and reports. Key data essential form making recommendations was summarized and validated.

• The percent Value Add time of total lead time was calculated
• Most processes have <10% VA
• Capability analysis on inbound and customer requirements was performed to understand process performance

Some data was then reduced to waterfall charts to increase the visibility of the opportunities for each key asset. These opportunities were converted from hours to dollars to help prioritize which improvement concepts merited action.

In this case, the team identified a nominal $2MM of improvement opportunities. Most of those are not single one time projects. It is more likely that they will take a series of improvement efforts very much in the spirit of Toyota’s culture. The value stream map has a shelf life and is only as good as the data from which it was derived. It is commonly recommended that the VSM be revisited every 6 to 12 months to account for the changes common in all businesses.

The Guthrie Group (TGG) team is proud to announce the release of our newly redesigned website! The site was redesigned with user-friendly navigation, updated with the latest information about our products and services and a simple access to the information you need. We have created a new order to cash wheel describing common problems faced by our clients and how to find solutions.

Some other new features include a much more thorough listing of TGG consulting services, an ‘up-to-date training class schedule, with an easy to register page. There is a TGG blog, where you will find up-to-date events. Visit our store, to find all your training simulations needs.

So start exploring. Learn about our current training classes, view the improved calendar of upcoming events. Discover our cash wheel (tools) to help run your business more effectively. Read about our past successes. We hope that you will enjoy browsing our new site, finding more options and information each time and that it will be another tool for strengthening our business relations.

Take a look around and have fun!

A HUGE THANK YOU to NorthStar Marketing who designed our new website. Check them out at http://www.northstarmarketing.com/

Learning  – Leaders – Strategic Change

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