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Lean Throughput and Flow

Lean Thinking may be applied to improve throughput - producing items intended for sale.  Several lean techniques such as cellular manufacturing, kanban and total productive maintenance address lead-time and improve flow.  Specific techniques along with benefits and our capabilities are described below. 

Increased Throughput - Capacity Control

Improving throughput, or producing products intended for immediate sale, is the primary objective of manufacturing.  It is critical to understand material flow and any operation that constrains or limits production.  The critical constraint resource or bottleneck becomes the focus for improvement.  Theory of Constraints and lean tools and techniques help to understand the constraint and take steps to elevate them to control throughput or to alleviate them through targeted improvements.  This results in making more money as measured by business measures such as net profit, return on investment and cash flow.  The goal is to simultaneously increase throughput, while reducing inventory and operating expense.  

An effective business analyzes and plans capacity on long-term, intermediate-term and short-term time horizons.  We can help develop a model to rapidly assess capacity and load at a high level using rough cut capacity planning.  We make use of tools or develop tools to define capacity and load based on orders planned or underway, using capacity requirements planning; and monitor and coordinate short-term resource loading using input – output control.

Capacity planning requires accurate inputs to achieve meaningful output.  Setup and run times should be time studied and updated.  Utilization, yield and efficiency must be monitored.  These factors impact stated capacity.  Measuring utilization through work sampling observations (Machine Utilization Sample Study) identify types of factors reducing utilization and the amount of time lost.  In this way, improvement efforts can be targeted to break the bottleneck improving throughput and ultimately profitability.  Capacity planning is essential for operational effectiveness, yet is often not available or not properly used in many companies and departments.

Key Benefits

• Increased revenue through sales generated by improved throughput
• Reduce inventory and improve cash flow by producing only what's needed 
• Improved equipment utilization for improved productivity
• Constraints or bottlenecks discovered, diagnosed and optimized
• Capacity control used to understand production limits and better predict output
• Improved delivery performance resulting from capacity understanding and improved throughput

Activities

• Apply work sampling study to understand equipment utilization, reasons for downtime and improvement possibilities
• Take steps to improve throughput by finding and optimizing bottlenecks through changes in policies and operating practices
• Control mixed-model scheduling by elevating the constraint or pacemaker and tying other resources to its output potential
• Diagnose current capacity planning capabilities, design capacity model or recommend enhancements to existing practices 
• Orient and train personnel as required for capacity planning and control
• Study and document accurate run and setup times - optimize methods

Cellular -Streamlined Flow - Lead-time

Plant Layout uses a number of techniques to understand the current layout and its deficiencies and to design an improved layout. CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems help to facilitate documenting, reviewing and presenting options. Spaghetti diagrams, and cut and paste layout methods may be used to more effectively engage teams. Layouts may be evaluated using a weighted criteria matrix with team input. Material and information closeness / separation needs, extent of material transported, and distances traveled are significant criteria. Transition to the new layout requires specifying equipment needs (hookups, access, alignment...) and locations with effective move coordination to minimize downtime. 

Plants are typically organized by functional groups of equipment and support staff. To effectively accomplish flow, these functional groupings must be broken down into cells or natural work-teams focused on product families. Equipment is positioned according to the sequence of operations. Work content must be distributed and balanced for line-balanced workflow within takt time, the "beat" of customer demand. Through creative design and material handling methods, lot-sizes can be reduced toward the ultimate goal of handling one piece at a time. The process must be stabilized with consistently high quality, well-maintained - reliable equipment, and predictable throughput times. Cellular Flow

Lead-time may be improved by a number of techniques - moving operations closer together through cellular manufacturing, mixed model level load scheduling, controlling queues with kanban / pull systems or other limits, reducing lot-sizes with setup reduction, and better information sharing through such approaches as blanket purchase orders and e-commerce. Alleviating bottlenecks or other constraints improves flow and correspondingly reduces lead-times. Shorter, predictable lead-times improve delivery performance. Improvements must be driven into the supply chain working with customers and suppliers for optimum material flow, high quality, reliable delivery and effective coordination. 

Key Benefits

• Layout arranged for optimal material flow and localized information 
• Team involvement for better ideation, ownership and coordination 
• Cellular manufacturing for responsiveness, optimum methods and quality at the source
• Reduced lead-times cashed through customer sales acting on newfound responsiveness and on-time delivery

Activities

• Define and redesign plant layout using AutoCAD software and cut and paste methods 
• Facilitate teams to generate ideas and evaluate alternative layout solutions 
• Call upon design and implementation expertise gained through extensive industrial engineering background and experience with major plant reconfigurations
• Plan, coordinate and support implementation to accomplish the layout change 
• Use design concepts and best practices to accomplish lean cellular production and flow 
• Apply several tools and breadth of experience to control queues, reduce lead-time and improve responsiveness 

Does your product take a tour of the plant? Is the facility organized by functional, rather than product family groupings? Do customers complain about long waits or missed deliveries? If so, get help to effectively apply cellular manufacturing, streamlined flow and lead-time reduction.

Kanban - Pull Systems

 Kanban is a visual system of production control using returnable containers, cards or spaces to pull products from the producing workstation or supplier into the consuming workstation or business.  Control inventory buffers and queue sizes through defined First-In-First-Out (FIFO) squares or lanes.  The system is very disciplined with defined rules.  

The goal is to continually reduce kanban / buffer sizes to lower inventory level, improve quality and reduce lead-time.  Information and services as well as products can be pulled.  McDonald’s method of keeping burger lanes full during peak periods is a recognizable example of a pull system in a service application.  

Apply other visual production control methods such as scheduling boards when traditional lean methods don't fit the situation. Queues controlled via pull systems result in lower inventories and shorter, more predictable lead-times to improve customer service. Description: Kanban Pull System

Key Benefits

• Visual production control simplifies communication for a self-regulating workplace requiring minimal management intervention
• Shorter, predictable lead-times improve ability to promise order completion and deliver on-time
• Inventory reduction results in improved cash flow
• Pull systems support continuous improvement programs and employee involvement leading to high performance

Activities

• Apply extensive experience to designing, modeling and implementing kanban card system, returnable containers, FIFO lanes and other queue control methods - individually or in combination
• Call upon understanding, direct experience and observation of numerous alternative pull system mechanisms to fit a variety of production scenarios
• Facilitate teams to design, test, orient, train and implement kanban for high involvement and ownership

Are you looking for a way to synchronize production with demand? Kanban directly links supply with the demand-pull of customers or down-stream operations. Supermarkets, reorder boards, kanban squares or FIFO lanes are a few ways to accomplish material flow objectives. Incorporate "one less at a time" to continuously reduce kanban buffer levels, and to discover and eliminate problems. . Get the help of an experienced "sensei" to accelerate your learning curve.

Setup / Changeover Reduction

Large lots waiting in queue cause long manufacturing lead-times and high levels of work-in-process inventory.  Large lots are typically justified by the need to spread the labor cost of long setups over many parts.  A changeover or setup is the duration of time from the last good piece produced in the previous lot to the first good piece produced in the next lot, after steady state production is achieved.  Simplifying or eliminating steps, standardizing methods, shifting internal elements to external, mistake-proofing, visual workplace organization and minimizing adjustments, accomplish setup or changeover time reduction.  Setup Reduction

Key Benefits

• Ability to reduce lot sizes and queues to improve responsiveness and reduce lead-times
• More predictable and reliable setups improve quality and reduce waste
• More reliable and responsive order commitments and on-time delivery
• Reduced inventory for improved cash flow

Activities

• Videotape and analyze setup / changeover methods using a structured approach based on the Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) technology developed by Shigeo Shingo, a Japanese industrial engineer
• Facilitate team to review, analyze, improve and track progress on setup / changeover performance
• Call upon experience with many different types of setups in a variety of industrial settings
• Apply extensive industrial engineering education and experience in methods improvement techniques

Do long setup times get in the way of reducing batch sizes? Do the large batches lining up in queue contribute to long lead-times? This phenomenon is similar to the delay when waiting for a line of buses to leave a school parking lot before you can drop off your child. It just seems too expensive to setup to run just a few pieces. To reduce batch sizes and gain flexibility, you must first reduce setup or changeover times. A proven methodology, facilitated by a process expert, can help to achieve results.

Total Productive Maintenance

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a program, which brings maintenance into focus in order to minimize downtimes and maximize equipment usage.  Maintenance through TPM is no longer regarded as a non-profit activity.  The goal of TPM is to avoid emergency repairs and keep unscheduled maintenance to a minimum.  This helps to increase output and make it more uniform and predictable. It is essential to define equipment effectiveness and downtime.  Then procedures are implemented to achieve predictive and preventive maintenance to assure continuous uptime.  Total Productive Maintenance

Key Benefits

• More reliable equipment with improved, more predictable uptime leading to increased / more predictable output
• Employee involvement - maintenance technicians and operators - increase ownership and improve outcomes
• Preventive and predictive maintenance avoids unexpected downtime and resulting missed commitments

Activities

• Use a number of techniques to clean-up machines, visually identify maintenance and ensure compliance
• Observe methodology to understand overall operations effectiveness and respond to observed deficiencies
• Facilitate team to review, analyze, improve and track progress on maintenance and overall operations effectiveness

Does unreliable equipment introduce process delays? Are maintenance costs growing without a corresponding improvement in equipment reliability? Use proven techniques to yield more equipment uptime. Obtain support and facilitation to improve your maintenance program and results.

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Send mail to GregHart@HartInnovations.com with questions or comments about this web site.