CONTRIBUTING RE.ENGINEER
Shadrach Stephens
BACKGROUND
A HVAC manufacturing site was gearing up for a new product line that would impact 50% of their operations. Our team had to create implementation plans for manufacturing cells to ensure a smooth start-up of the new line of products.
SOLUTION
A previous product start-up in these manufacturing cells was not pre-planned. An excessive amount of production downtime occurred because bill of materials did not match cells, material did not match visual aids, operators had increased travel times, and new equipment/supplies arrived sporadically. A Kaizen project was created to minimize plant downtime as a new product was released to six production units.
RESULT
Capacity studies, cell layouts, parts/die verifications, visual aids and equipment schedules were performed and evaluated which aided in a reduced setup/cycle times for tooling changeovers by 68% (pre-product line vs. post-product line).
IMPACT
68% decrease in cycle time