Assembly Site Consolidation

50% Improvement in Production-order Readiness.

Case Studies

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Business Issue

A highly technical assembly site needed to consolidate production from two buildings to one while shifting some simple assemblies to third-party providers.

Approach Used

Flow Consulting coached and facilitated the training of 10 Lean Black Belts and 20 Green Belts — and to consult on design and implementation, which included:

• Five hands-on Lean training sessions over five months following the DMAIC sequence with coaching support over nine months — in support of project efforts.

• Five sub-teams focused on:

  1. Layout-Flow

  2. Test

  3. Clean Orders

  4. Material Flow-Presentation

  5. Line Management Processes

During the project, the teams faced the unexpected challenge of volume and mix of business changes, effectively requiring a capacity 2.5 times over the original specifications. This required significant stakeholder coaching and change-management throughout.

Results

The teams developed a completely new Lean layout with the following results built into the solution:

• 50% Improvement in Production-order Readiness.

• 80% WIP Reduction.

• 70% Decrease in Production Travel Distance.

• 50% Reduction in Cycle Times.

• 22% Improvement Utilizing Production Space.

• 65% Reduction in Test Cycle Time.

Our client now has 30 Lean experts with certified black and green belt skills in Lean including experience delivering successful results in the face of major obstacles.