Competitive Business Solutions (CBS) executed an intensive process to address a long list of deficient processes that were a drag on product quality and threatened the client’s ability to meet a key financial commitment. The five and a half-month project spanned hundreds of process improvement efforts and a concerted effort to upgrade the skills of a mostly junior workforce. An important emphasis was placed on maintaining critical production equipment and instilling new levels of discipline and individual accountability. The result: significant reductions in unit labor hours, defect rates, and product rework; a return to on-time deliveries; and achievement of the client’s fiscal 2017 revenue target. Client A Tier 2 supplier of wings with revenues of more than $3 billion, contracted with Competitive Business Solutions in 2017. Overview The client took over production from a tier 1 supplier that was reducing its manufacturing footprint. The plant had seen significant turnover in both its leadership and labor along with sustained inattention to capital improvements and routine maintenance. These circumstances seriously threatened the client’s ability to meet customer demands for delivery, cost, and quality. Click through to access the full case study here.
Read More →Achieving Exceptional Manufacturing Performance & Quality: System-Based Performance Solutions
Q&A with Performance Solutions by Milliken Any improvement methodology is only as effective as its execution. Many manufacturers fail to support their improvement initiatives with a performance management system to provide guidelines and oversight. These companies typically struggle just to stabilize their operations, much less improve. To institute success and drive organizations towards increased safety, productivity and efficiency, Performance Solutions by Milliken utilizes the Milliken Performance System. This system is built upon a foundation of strategic clarity and safety and is focused on engaging all associates in the uncompromising pursuit of zero safety incidents, creating alignment between operations and businesses and resulting in lean enterprise.
Read More →Teams 2.0 – Rebooting Team Engagement and Execution
In many organizations today, team functionality is actually working against overall business success and efficiency. Organizations have become a slave to team models that are inefficient, unproductive, and bureaucratic. This Q&A with Competitive Solutions, Inc. answers the following questions about Rebooting Team Engagement and Execution: What are the main issues you see businesses experiencing in team engagement in execution? Why does team functionality work against overall business success and efficiency? What are non-negotiable systems, and how can organizational leaders use these systems to transform the business? When are continuous improvement tools no longer effective? In your experience, what has the outcome been like when team engagement and execution are rebooted?
Read More →Reducing Customer Wait Times and Saving Sight with the Toyota Production System
Jamie Bonini, VP, Toyota Production System Support Center at Toyota, joined us at the American Automotive Summit to discuss “Driving Profitability for the Future: Redefining Competitiveness through Achieving and Sustaining Lean Excellence.” Bonini describes the Toyota Production System as “an organizational culture of highly engaged people that come to work every day to do their work and make their work better.” This culture is created and sustained by a system that has three elements: a philosophy (on how to operate and how to treat your people), some technical tools, and a managerial role, which is to relentlessly engage and develop people to solve problems to drive improvement. The Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) aims to share this organizational culture to improve businesses and the world. Their mission is “to contribute to society by sharing the Toyota Production System (TPS) with nonprofits, government entities, and manufacturers throughout North America to better serve customers or people in need.” Bonini shared with the audience a few case studies about how they are bringing the TPS approach to varied organizations, including a family-owned job shop making stainless steel components in Chicago, and the State of New York. One case that was particularly touching was about the work they have done at an ophthalmology clinic in Los Angeles, where TSSC has applied TPS to reduce speed and wait times for eye surgeries.
Read More →Sustaining a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Implementing lean initiatives can be a challenge, but sustaining them is even harder. As Mark Reich, COO of the Lean Enterprise Institute, told the crowd at the American Manufacturing Summit, “to be sustainable, it has to be more than a program. As long as it’s a program, it’s not going to be sustainable. Because as soon as whoever’s program it is leaves, it’s not going to sustain. So it has to be built into the company’s fundamental way of doing business.” In other words, it needs to become part of the culture. Once you have made the case for change and built the concept of continuous improvement into the culture of your organization, it is leadership’s responsibility to continue to nurture this culture. In his presentation, “Culture: The Definitive Piece in your CI Journey,” at the American Manufacturing Summit, Mark Gooch, GVP, Operations & Lean Enterprise at Pentair, gave the following tips to the audience on sustaining a culture of continuous improvement.
Read More →Lean Implementation throughout the Supply Chain
So you’ve been successful at implementing your own lean initiative, but now you’re being squeezed by your customers, who want lower prices and higher quality, and your shareholders who want higher profits. How do you satisfy both stakeholders? Generis thought leaders from Navistar, Under Armour, Toyota, the Lean Enterprise Institute, and Wabash Corporation share how they have worked with their suppliers to implement lean throughout the supply chain to decrease cost and improve product quality.
Read More →Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement: The Case for Change
A lot has been written about how to truly implement continuous improvement processes and lean initiatives, you need to embed it in the culture of the organization. “Every company in manufacturing has to develop an operating philosophy, a standard methodology, and a language that creates a culture that focuses on continuous improvement,” Byron Greene, former VP & Head of Vehicle Assembly at FCA, explains. But how does an organization go about doing this? Michele Calbi, former VP, Lean Transformation at Navistar, told the audience at the 2016 American Manufacturing Summit, “You have to create a case for change. It is extremely powerful. If you can drive that passion into the employees, you will see amazing things.” She shared a few stories of companies that have pulled themselves out of dire situations by creating a powerful case for change.
Read More →iBASEt: Following the Digital Thread Into the Future
What is the digital thread? The digital thread links systems used to execute and track design, engineering, manufacturing and MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul), establishing a seamless flow of information from product conception to delivery and beyond. The concept of the digital thread was spearheaded by the military aircraft industry, from its desire to improve the performance of future programs by applying lessons learned. Why is it important? With the emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things, smart manufacturing, and automation, it is integral to create a communication framework that connects data flow from initial design to development. “The digital thread brings customers, vendors, and suppliers close, tying them into holistic feedback and evaluation loops. To learn more about the Digital Thread, read Tom Hennessey’s (Vice President of Marketing at iBASEt) article on Following the Digital Thread Into the Future.
Read More →How Does Technology fit with your Lean Initiative?
With rapid innovation and the proliferation of data, technology promises improvements in nearly every area of manufacturing. The implications for increased efficiency are tremendous, but our experts warn that technology will not solve all your lean problems. At our 2016 American Manufacturing Summit, we spoke to some lean leaders about how you should think of technology within the framework of your lean initiative. The consensus is that while technology can be a great complement to your lean initiatives, providing you with insights you wouldn’t otherwise have, it cannot entirely replace the human aspects of lean. Learn what they had to say on this topic.
Read More →How Real-time Dynamic Scheduling Can Change the Game
In most high-mix discrete manufacturing, the concept of plant floor management can be misleading, as schedules cannot be carried out, production analysis is often too late to create impactful changes, and there is no visibility into bottlenecks, WIP or order status. Fortunately, Real-time Dynamic Scheduling is now available and can create improvements in plant floor management by coordinating among four functions: production planning, execution, tracking, and analysis.
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