Cellular Manufacturing achieves massive reduction in delivery times

Post date: Oct 5, 2015 6:28:26 PM

Business Excellence has introduced lean type cellular manufacturing at a renown Luxembourgish precision toolmaker. 

The pilot project, kicked off in September 2015 has been conducted on a shoestring budget to demonstrate the potential gains from lean in a high value added precision business.

The pilot cell was designed by a team of the customer's employees trained and coached by Business Excellence, who has also accompanied the team in the deployment.

Initial results are a reduction of typical repair times from 15 calendar days to just 3 to 5 working days.

Laminar flow in the manufacturing cell is represented by FIFO sequencers on the machines. Given the shoestring budget the sequencer was made from wire and paperclips, but included colour coded tickets to make on time and late highly visible to enable any late work to be caught up to deliver on time. (See picture).

The ability to more than halve the lead time for repairs is a strategic advantage for the toolmaker and his customers who are consequentially able to offer enhanced customer service to their own clients and win higher margin valuable business.

The collateral benefits of faster reactivity to quality and reliability of equipment issues as well as improved team spirit in the "natural work group" are also emerging as bonus benefits of cellular manufacturing.