Lean Manufacturing & Quality Assurance Consultants
Quality Management Systems Are Business Processes

Case Study:

A client had just won a large contract to make a small turbine engine control. The customers (The Air Force and a foreign government) were concerned about the ability of this small company to ship 5 controls a day for three months straight.

The assembly process included motor assembly and a wet pump run in. All told the processes added up to 3.5 calendar days including the thermal and vibration environmental testing.

The manpower estimates concluded no-additional production staff would need to be added, but the operations staff was nervous and if additional staff was needed, hiring and training must start immediately.

Having been through a prototype build all the data needed to complete a process flow analysis was on hand. We mapped out the processes including manpower requirements, processes time, equipment capacities and production risks.

The process was modeled using a production simulation computer software program and studied for production bottlenecks and staff requirements.

It was concluded the present staffing level was adequate, but an additional oven should be procured for risk management. The production bottleneck was the thermal burn-in oven. It had to closed at 2:00 PM every day. If only four units were available for burn in and even if the fifth unit was only an hour away the oven had to be shut with only four units. The second oven allowed for schedule recovery.

The study was presented to the customers which included a live simluation of the production line. The production plan was approved.

The next step consisted of setting up the production flow with benches and tooling at each work station with Kanban racks. At this point the production staff was skeptical about building to a level then stopping and moving on to the next rack with an unfullfilled Kanban. After listening to their concerns, I created a quick two hour training course in lean manufacturing using Legos to build a model plane. The Lego Model Plan factory demonstrated how lean manufacturing techniques accomidated the production flow and enable fewer workers to a more continuous flow of product. While the "I hear and see what you are saying, I am still worried..." still existed the workers at least felt they had the tools and knowledge to give it a try.

Resisting temptation to keep going after a kanban was filled the workers who were all cross trained moved from workstation to workstation without management directive and soon the kanban levels started to rise and the wave of work in progress started to flow across the production line.

It was beautiful sight to behold!

The plan included buffers for test failures and other product fallout. And at the end of day 3, 5 units were presented to Final Bench Inspection.

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