We focused on transitioning the facility from a traditional batch-and-queue manufacturing system to one that could accommodate, in an agile manner, higher mix and smaller lot production based on true customer demand. We started by walking through the value stream to establish the current state of the operation and the management of that operation. It was clear that cycle times and stagnation of inventory were key to a number of issues faced by Watlow and its management. We identified the truly value-added steps and set to change the information flow to facilitate the smaller lot size production needed.  In the end, we established ‘broken-line” manufacturing cells and rapid flow lines.

Through changing the flow of production we were able to reduce PVC inventory within the system from 11,000 pounds to only 4,200 pounds. By collaborating with their supplier, we were able to reduce the floor space needed for this inventory by 50%.

We visualized the communication systems on the factory floor, thereby establishing flow management between processes in the factory with no expenditure on information systems or management systems.  This allowed us to reduce travel flow of product information by 70% as well as cut the lead time by 46%.

We also focused on the priority customers for Watlow. One such customer for tapered thermo couplers for a large semiconductor account occupied a large amount of capacity.  This change in method at Watlow was realized across other accounts too.  Transportation of WIP parts was reduced from 4486 to 1309 feet and work order open times went from 15 to 8 days. Finally, setup time was reduced 79%.

We started by analyzing the current state and reviewing material flow at each position. We were then were able to establish a redesign goal based on a key strategy of putting the steel rolls back into raw stock. This was unusual in industry; once a coil of steel is put on the line it is usually fully run.

Their requirements were based on demand of 70 pallets per shift. They were initially able to achieve this with 3 full-time packagers. We focused on improving safety and ergonomics, reducing the space needed for the process, and reducing the number of personnel needed to meet demand. This was all possible by reducing the setup times and designing equipment to put the steel back.  This allowed OMS to manufacturer closer to customer needs and make available coils for other unique cutting and slitting needs.

Finished goods inventory was reduced by creating a quick changeover system and reducing lead-times. We also focused on office functions to eliminate errors, redundancies, and the waste of processing in order to speed up the flow of information. The demand for quicker responses came due to the factory putting away the steel and not occupying manufacturing time to run the steel out.  This freed up opportunities to offer unique orders to customers and fulfill more customized needs of the customer. In the end, the customer benefited greatly with more available capacity and variety from each machine line, and able to receive products to match their order needs.

We were able to perform packaging and slitting with personnel in the same area. The 70 required pallets per shift that originally needed 3 dedicated personnel could not be completed with only 2 people. OMS was able to increase capacity per shift in order to shutdown the third shift, saving the costs that went with it.  Finally, the square footage used for WIP and Semi-FG inventory areas was reduced by half.

These improvements allowed OMS to gain more control and stability of cash flow while better matching the movement of the commodity pricing. They were able to build a new raw material warehouse with a direct rail spur, further enhancing their ability to respond to increasing needs of customer orders.

This streamlining of processes, along with shorter lead-times and improved information flow, resulted in great customer service and agility for OMS.

We initially analyzed the entire value-stream to establish the need for linking operations based on takt time and flow methodologies. WhiteWater then worked through the entire business, from steel processing, to theming, to shipping, in order to identify and eliminate costs of quality, high labor costs, outsourcing stagnation, and need to expand operations.  They were able to conduct comprehensive production planning and administrative reform based on actual demand and the uncovered capacity on the frontline value-added processes.  This was a total transformation of the business.

After achieving savings of 30–35% in each frontline process, production management reform was able to leverage this into an overall savings of 30%. This also resulted in a significant reduction in lead-time for delivering finished products to customers. They can now output more products with fewer people, at a lower cost. Quality also increased naturally because the employees self-managed their work as well as designed the entire manufacturing system and communication system.

In 2015, WhiteWater Industries received Canada’s Best Managed Company Award.

After forging consensus on the current state with ownership and management, they established concrete goals to improve the business. The operations coordinated their work to minimize machine downtime. They implemented a preventive maintenance system to eliminate the root cause of errors and rework. Finally they revised they entire layout of their workplace to ensure the safest reduction of handling and transportation time.

Meanwhile, they reduced their batch sizes by implementing a just-in-time schedule to use and produce based on the actual needs of the shipping department and ultimately their customers.  This formed the business strategy to manufacture in reverse order of the logistic needs to make sure that all furniture that was loaded first into the truck was systematically manufactured based on the drop sequence location of the truck for the end customer.

With their new scheduling system, manufacturing system, and re-layout of the factories, they were able to dramatically lower batch sizes and rework at the same time. This freed up people in the finishing area who were then moved into more value-added assembly work. The reallocation of team members further enhanced flow and their ability to deliver quality products to their customers without overproduction or excess buffer stock.

Before

After

Our team started by examining key processes. Part of the work flow involved using a large machine to lift drums of raw materials into a giant mixing vat (see photos below). This process added large amounts of time, energy and air bubbles. Once we had given the workers the authority to start questioning the old methods of operating, they quickly realized there was a better way.

Tapping into the worker’s expertise, we helped them devise a simpler solution. Rather than dump the material into a big vat which is then pumped into the bottling machine, they attached a small pump and tube directly to the drum so the material did not have to be lifted then churned.

This dramatically reduced the number of defects and changeover time. Now they could produce smaller batches of several different products quickly, without losing time spent cleaning and resetting the systems.

What started as concerns over defects caused by machines evolved into a discussion of how machines were loaded and used. Gourmet Garden was able to develop their own solutions.  This had a massive impact by eliminating the need to open new facilities in the United States.

This simple mechanical process change reduced the defect level from 3.7% down to 0.15%, saving over $97,000 a day!

We started with a walkthrough of the processes, gathering data to establish cycle times and customer demands. We simultaneously rooted out and eliminated engineering constraints.  From there, we were able to identify major engineering challenges with the fabrication and testing of the ophthalmic lasers. With this information, we designed simple simulations to experiment with new layouts and processing designs. The optimal layout was then implemented to create standard line flow.

After implementing the new line flow, assembly lead-time was reduced from 17 days to just 15 hours. Productivity increased from 17 to 20 units per week, and this was based on real demand. The space needed for assembly was reduced from 2585 square feet to only 700 square feet. More impressively, we increased the productivity of engineering, assembly, and shipping staff by 367% and reassigned staff to other research projects. When we began, they had $156,000 worth of work-in-process inventory on the line. After implementing our new line flow, they reduced this to $52,000 for a savings of $104,000.

Throughput increase along with component defect reduction and a lower failure-rate of functional tests increased their profitability 225%.

We began by building a new planning methodology based on the needs of internal customers for each process. This can be summarized as operation-based production planning via a pull system. We accomplished this through linking information dependencies and allowing processes to update and collect information as other processes performed their tasks.

During this time, we optimized value-stream flow by creating a self-management system through which support could be autonomously signaled for any bottlenecks that may occur. We designed and deployed incentive systems for the employees, which guided them to collaborate together in order to achieve organizational effectiveness rather than just their own process efficiencies.

We redefined all roles and responsibilities, including organizational reporting lines and the organizational structure, to streamline the escalation of problems. These streamlined structures provide clear pathways from the frontline employees to the top leadership team. Ultimately, our management systems and our design of the quality gates used for the elimination of defects have been huge triumphs by giving accountability to raw material suppliers for the quality they supply to the factories.

62% of working capital cash was freed up for other needs.  This was accomplished by transitioning to a pull system, which replaced the previous method of planning based on forecasting.  The reconfiguration of Amer Sports’ production cells to a multi-skilled focus allowed the company to free up key labor to train further employees on key skills.  This empowered the business to expand its knowledge in ski making, giving machines much more availability in volume and mix of products.  Our efforts were rewarded with a savings of hundreds of thousands of euros per machining and assembly area, per year, for multiple of machines.  This savings has released millions of dollars of cash annually for the business to invest in other developments.

In-process defect detection has increased by 50% and rework due to quality issues has been reduced by 35%.  This most positively affects costs but also throughput and speed. In all, we increased capacity greatly, reduced working capital by multiples, and reduced manufacturing lead-time by half.  Our efforts here are ongoing, and we will see continued improvements overall.

Top leadership now has clear understanding of how to cultivate cost reductions and employee engagement. The foundations of visual management and visual escalation systems are instilled in the business. Our design of a centralized electronic business KPI dashboard has supported the vice president to share positive results across the entire organization.

AgSolutions started its transformation by enacting comprehensive production planning changes which enabled rapid flow and process optimizations. Furthermore, we implemented a visual product dispatch planning system to create a response based production system. As a result, new sharing of information was needed. We formed new teams of people and new informational displays to meet the sales needs. These facilitated proper forecasting of customer demands and improved production capacity.

We also developed for AgSolutions their own custom ERP (enterprise resource planning software). This comprehensive application was developed in less than 1 month thanks to our proprietary IP.  This development incorporate older systems and other department software to maintain information flow and increase response times at all levels of the organization.

Finally, we developed and implemented custom CRM (customer relationship management) software for their sales department along with corporate dashboards for real-time analysis of the organization’s, sales, production, financial performance, and investments.

AgSolutions achieved focused all-inclusive change for their business. Lead-time decreased dramatically from 3 months to a single day for most products, and the previous 12 weeks worth of inventory was refined into just 6 days worth of inventory.

With our guidance, each plant was transformed from producing 8 batches per day up to 70 batches per day. This was the result of improving the milling plants’ quality, rising 40% higher than original engineering specifications. The various plants’ capacity increased 158% while halving batch sizes concurrently.

Overall, factory capacity increased 158%, with sales increasing 161% in just 6 months. AgSolutions now enjoys the alignment of its leaders and its owners. We have recently designed a new green field site due to our success and market demand for more of AgSolutions’ products, which provide beef weight gain, field growth, and nutrient gain so farmers can provide superior nutrition to the communities they serve.

We introduced and developed visual management systems to identify bottleneck processes and built these visual management systems into every project along with respective signal boards. This allowed us to implement higher value flow of information and materials, process changes, and machine changeover time reductions. In this respect, we overhauled the entire production, engineering, and sales systems at Able.

This model with which we have guided Able’s efforts has proven them to be more than willing to undertake difficult tasks in order to improve themselves as well as their organization. They were able to identify abnormalities and create information systems to allocate the right resources to complete projects in the most timely manner.

Finally, we developed matrices to track the progress of each employee and a train-the-trainer program to champion personal growth and maintenance of each individual’s skills.  This growth in skills translated directly to better business metrics.

The leadership of the senior executive teams was strengthened in parallel to the leadership of the frontline teams.  Rework was massively decreased and Able is now the undeniable leader for their industry.  Rework is now at zero in just 6 months with Enna’s IP.

Stagnation of decisions in production, engineering, and inspection was reduced by 40%.  Project lead-time has been reduced by 30% even with increasing mix and complexity.

Productivity increased despite a natural decrease in employment, and profitability soared. There was no need to hire additional employees at this point.

The engineering skills and expertise from the senior staff has now been passed on to the younger engineers, reducing the cost from rehiring new engineers by 25%.

Most remarkably, Able’s profit per employee ended up going from $512 per employee per month to $3,475 per employee per month. Overall, the value of the organization increased by multiples before it was sold at this upgraded value to the Textron company.  The owner had a vision to create growth and profitability. Our strategy helped make this vision a reality.

To positively affect the entire organization we determined that physician engagement was the tipping point for Seattle Children’s. Given that this was an active community and specialized hospital, we knew that taking physicians and staff outside of their environment was key to success.  We also observed that management of areas, facilities, operating rooms, and overall care between experts was the main issue for the hospital.  Therefore, we custom designed a benchmarking tour to Enna’s best companies so that Seattle Children’s doctors, nurses, and administration could learn how to lead and install innovation into its operations.

Enna brought senior managers and approximately 250+ medical professionals to be immersed in key businesses and mentor with key leaders at various world-class organizations. This provided the backbone to incorporate necessary changes inside each department within Seattle Children’s Hospital. We also designed unique morale exercises for these clients inside the hospital setting to inspire and empower them. We were able to deploy new project management methods and technology, implement a new operating room management system, and design a layered approach to quality assurance.

For the surgery center, we designed and implemented a successful visual surgery scheduling system for 3-month intervals of allocations for each surgery room across the needs of 16 medical disciplines.

At Seattle Children’s, the implementation of our model fostered strong leadership and commitment.  This developed from the medical staff in a very short time, broke down barriers of communication, and brought disciplines together. From their training and mentoring, these professionals became highly engaged in providing more value to their patient and greatly exceeded industry care standards.

Project lead-time was reduced by 40% and the daily medical rounding time was reduced by half.  The hospital increased its speeds of medical rounding while improving the quality of care.  Finally, the emergency room benefits exceeded all facility engineered volume and response times.  Seattle Children’s and our work with them is regarded as revolutionary and a global standard for the medical industry.

Seattle Children’s is regarded as one of the best hospitals in the world due to their industry leading sustainability, cost reductions, and quality of care.