Did you know, one of the world’s leading manufacturer of industrial construction and agricultural equipment has been using lean manufacturing process for decades?
The organization is known for taking care of its customer relationship. It states lean manufacturing as a time-based strategy that emphasizes on lead time reduction through eliminating waste in each area of production, including customer relations, product design, supplier networks, and factory management.
The goal of the organization was to produce products as per the customer demand with the highest quality while being productive and safe. We all know that Lean has been encompassing five key measurable elements: quality, cost, delivery, safety, and morale.
Continuously Improvement using Lean Manufacturing
The lean journey of the organization began 16 years ago when the company decided and implemented a single process for all of its welding production. At that time, about 40% of the organization’s 220 production welding stations used pulsed gas metal arc welding (GMAW). Also, the company used 8 different models of welders from at least 3 different vendors. The first step of the organization was to standardize the process for all welding production, reduce the number of welder models from 8 to 2 and select a lean welding partner.
After implementing lean, the organization started seeing results; production rate increased by ~38% on its lean model line, the line that best exemplifies lean principles. It produces brush chippers. The raw materials were converted into finished goods within days and not within weeks like before. The organization saw an improvement of around 200 % to 300% for 4 years continuously.
After implementing Lean, the safety issues and severity rate reduced from 10% to 15%. The company was finally at a stage where they had Zero long-term corporate debt. After implementing lean principles on its terrain leveler line, the number of non-conforming welds dropped by 500% which caught through internal audits, which was from 6.68 to 1.36 welds per measurement period.
Hence as you can see, the lean manufacturing system has been helping organizations from across the industries for decades. Have you started implementing Lean manufacturing?
Compiled by Faber Priyal & Faber Mayuri
