By Don Kivell
This article is from the Superfactory Archives, an archive of content from the Superfactory website that existed from 1997 to 2012.
For more than 40 years, “Lean Manufacturing” techniques have been achieving outstanding success rates. First, in Japanese plants and now in advanced factories throughout North America, it has proven to be a cost effective and flexible approach to achieving superior customer satisfaction. Many shop floors, however, still look and perform as they did years ago, simply because sustaining the transition to Lean has proven to be a task of monumental proportions.
Long haul
You can’t go partway with Lean; you have to go all the way. If you don’t marry yourself to 5S concepts, commit to continuous Lean efforts and learn to make tough choices – as needed, on an ongoing basis – you always end up slipping back into the same bad habits.
A lot of manufacturers think that once they successfully implement Lean in an ailing area of their facility or on one problem production line, their troubles are over. In fact this is the time to use what you’ve learned and apply it somewhere else, multiplying your successes.
One of my clients, Mississauga, Ont.-based Tempress Ltd., a manufacturer of safety mixer valves and bathroom and kitchen faucets for the plumbing industry, learned this lesson well. Applying Lean concepts to its assembly line for pressure balancing valve production, we actually took a batch-based process and turned it into single-piece flow. After developing and reviewing several layouts, we completely rearranged the shop floor and restarted it, to great success. But we didn’t stop there. We took the same Lean approach to the company’s other line, the lavatory assembly cell. Here we also noted very positive results. Now on both lines, employees rotate efficiently through their new modular work cells.
Pulling together
Bill McLean, Tempress’s president, says the company has since been working on the visual factory piece of 5S, as well as some Kanban, or pull, features. Certain internal processes are running with it and the manufacturer also hooked up some of its local suppliers to improve the efficiency of production.
In the plant, boards have been mounted and displayed on the shop floor to show production output, 5S and health and safety information. This saves time and resources since signs, charts and graphs are much more visual and understandable than lengthy computer generated reports and emails.
In addition to organizing the plant for visual monitoring and control of its processes, as well as adding single piece flow, Tempress has synchronized the flow between machines/workstations and re-positioned machines and stations, which has improved efficiency and output per employee.
Since the company’s transition has happened over four years, Tempress knows the effort that is required in going Lean.
“When we 5S(ed) one area we just kept rippling it through the facility,” says McLean. “You do a trial. You maybe pilot your 5S or your pull in one area and then you just keep replicating it. That’s the way to ensure success.”
Though there is still work to do, Tempress is committed to going all the way. McLean says savings have been considerable. In one piece of the business, inventory has been scaled back to less than half of previous levels. Direct labor hours have been cut by 25 per cent.
Staying power
How do you make sure employees’ Lean practices stick? You include measurements in the visual piece (the visual factory) so people know how well they’re doing. This way all the information is in front of them. There are no secrets. Unless you measure your results, people naturally slide back into old behaviors. Good companies like Tempress do regular audits so that doesn’t happen.
You may find that some of your people don’t survive your Lean transition. Everyone must be committed to Lean. If not, the problem employee contributes to – and comes to embody – the very waste you are trying to eliminate.
But if an employee is resisting Lean because he thinks he is going to lose his job, this is your fault. It’s a shortsighted management group that implements Lean just so it can reduce its workforce.
The people plan
You must understand that you’re making an investment. The point isn’t to de-motivate your workforce by laying people off. The idea is to swiftly turn on the sales tap and take advantage of your new leanness. And if somebody becomes extraneous in one area, you move him/her to another place where they can make a positive impact. You need to reward your people for making a contribution to the success of the company.
In the euphoria of Lean transitions people feel part of a new world, but they can become unrealistic. Ultimately, they’re still doing their jobs. I tell them: if you were an assembler before Lean, you’re very likely still going to be an assembler. You won’t have as many headaches, you’ll know how to fix a quality issue and have a positive effect on production, but you’ve still got the screw gun in your hand – because that job was always important.
Sustaining gains and continuously improving in Lean Manufacturing is something that Tempress has done extremely well. It has kept its people keen on Lean even after four years, and continues to set and achieve Lean goals for its employees, encouraging them to participate in the success.