Factory Lead Times

Operational Excellence
Written By INOVAT

Lead time reduced by 48 percent.

Case Studies

Business Issue

A turbine blade manufacturer in support of maintenance, repair, and overhaul of gas and steam turbines was experiencing factory lead times that exceeded customer requirements. This manufacturer supports turbine outage/turnaround repairs, which means that short and predictable manufacturing lead times are critical.

Approach Used

Flow Consulting worked with a cross-functional team to collect and analyze current-state data. We then facilitated a kaizen, with the goal of reducing total blade-kit cycle time by 50 percent.

The Kaizen focus used:

  • One-piece flow

  • Early and detailed planning

  • And single-minute exchange of die concepts and techniques.

Results

The factory lead time was reduced 48 percent, from 21 days to 11 days. Significantly shorter lead times using these new processes was achieved on the first set of turbine blades.

INOVAT http://inovat.com
Previous

Production Costs Erode Margins
Next

Assembly Site Consolidation