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When owners get together and start talking shop, one of the topics sure to come up is, "How can I use my plant more effectively? I am already paying for it!"
For some companies it's an improvement goal, and for many others it borders on being a necessity to survive.
Most approaches fit into standard categories: finding more trained people, working longer hours, buying faster equipment and using better technology. All of these are standard, "inside the box" options.
In today's competitive market, some "outside the box" thinking is necessary to give a company more options — being able to be more competitive by being more cost effective.
ONSITE Woodwork in Loves Park, Ill., has been recognized as one of those "outside the box" companies. In 1999, Ralph Peterson and the management team at ONSITE were looking at ways to increase output from their 32,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing area. Being in the high-end custom architectural woodwork business, they faced different challenges than companies doing other types of millwork or cabinetmaking.
All of the company's products were client specific custom veneer panel work with matching furniture. The key question seemed to be, "How do you get more production out of a master craftsman without working him 80 hours a week?" Custom woodwork requires continuity in planning and in the construction process.
Questions arose like: What part of a blueprint panel project really requires a master craftsman, and what can be done by a trained, conscientious workforce? On a piece of custom furniture, does the craftsman that is building the piece really need to make all the components? What can be done to use his time most effectively?
When looking at a panel project, the critical part of the work is the veneer lay-up. Pressing, sizing, edgebanding, etc., can be done by well-trained team members working at any time of a shift or day. Mitering and assembly can be done by many team members with good instructions and supervision.
For complex projects, many of the components can be made to print by other team members, so the one or two craftsmen building the unit can concentrate on assembly and the final fitting of the pieces.
With this understanding in mind, ONSITE looked at trying to maximize the use of the facility six days a week. The company is a people oriented business that wanted to increase output, but not at the sacrifice of its employees' family time.
The concept that developed was not one of a standard second shift, but of overlapping shifts covering a major part of each day and the week, but also giving employees as much family time as possible.
Four shifts were envisioned with sufficient overlap time to communicate project status and component issues to the next group to be working.
A plan was laid out with colors for the shifts, not numbers, so no "ranking" or relative importance would be perceived.
YELLOW shift:
Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday: 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and four hours on Thursday
GREEN shift:
Thursday-Friday-Saturday: 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. — three 12-hour shifts paid as 40 hours
BLUE shift:
Monday through Friday: 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. — 8 hrs./day
ORANGE shift:
Monday through Thursday: 4 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. — 8 hrs./day
When Peterson called friends and associates for guidance on the concept, everyone told him it would not work. The company decided it needed to move forward in spite of the cautions.
The program and the rationale were explained to the plant workers and shift sign-up sheets were put out, so everyone had a chance to sign up for the shift he/she preferred. When sheets were gathered, only one person needed to be changed. There were challenges in the implementation and there have been many "opportunities" since, but overall the program has been a success.
Modifications have been made over time. A supervisor opens the shop at 5 a.m. and the shop is open for team members to start at 5:30 a.m. Anyone can punch in early, if they want to and the plant closes at the end of the orange shift at 2:30 a.m.
At ONSITE, there is a great flexibility of people and processes. Machine operation is achieved by cross-training team members — otherwise the flexibility of shifts wouldn't work. Currently the plant is utilizing a modified schedule of three shifts to cover the same six-day schedule.
One thing that is really unique at ONSITE is all overtime is strictly voluntary — there is no mandatory overtime.
TAKING THE LEAN PATH
In 2005, ONSITE ownership made a commitment to invest in developing a lean manufacturing initiative. While lean is usually thought of as pertaining to mass manufactured products, the management team felt that it could be applied to manufacturing processes used in a custom manufacturing environment as well.
ONSITE enlisted the services of IMEC (the Illinois Manufacturing Extension Center of Bradley University, www.imec1.org) to introduce lean concepts to the management team. Classes were scheduled for employees and management to hear and experience, through hands-on exercises, the benefits that come from "leaning" the manufacturing processes.
In 2006, Tim Fruin was hired to take over manufacturing and bring to ONSITE his experience in lean manufacturing from another major company in the woodwork industry. Fruin explained, "When I came in the door, it was nice for me. The knowledge and desire to have lean manufacturing had already been put in place. All I had to do was supply direction — paint a picture of the future, describe what could be accomplished."
Fruin established teams from employees who had voiced enthusiasm in being part of the process. He set up a "Lean Team," a "Suggestion Team" and a "Safety Team."
"Once we set up teams, we had to learn to conduct an effective team," Fruin says. "This was frustrating at first for team members — they joined the team thinking they could just implement ideas. They first had to learn to make decisions by consensus, to track progress, learn responsibilities and keep organized."
The team members began to understand the importance of getting everybody contributing to decisions and how to make decisions, then help implement improvements. They got through the process and, in hindsight, they saw that they learned how to use the strength of the team. It took them three months to get the first project implemented.
As it turned out, it was a fairly significant improvement — Job Packets. These were the packets of information given to manufacturing to start and complete a project going through the shop. They frequently lacked information and organization. Project packs are now in book form, containing all the necessary project information, and each has a team leader assigned.
"The new project pack books are working great," says lead person Vince Ribando. "They give me a chance to review a packet before it hits the floor. I can take a look at it and review how something is going to be built and have the ability to see if there might be other options to build it better or easier or less costly and still get the customer what they want before the first piece of material is cut."
The Lean Team then decided they needed to focus on controlling the flow of work on the floor. Fruin talked about work-in-progress, bottlenecks and controlling the flow to and from the bottlenecks. The team selected what they saw as the biggest bottleneck and studied the flow of work going through the finishing department.
Testing their ideas in the finishing area, the team taped off sections of the floor for work in various stages of finishing. They established time goals for work going through the department. They then tracked the product flow and how well the finishing team was doing at meeting those goals. Group discussions came up with ideas on how to meet the goals more effectively. The finishing room team now limits the amount of product coming into the department.
One of the biggest signs of change is the thought process in finishing. The lead man, the month before team changes, had asked for more drying racks. A month after, he wanted to get rid of excess drying racks, and no new racks had been bought.
Fruin reports, "Today I believe that it is no longer a bottleneck in finishing and they can keep up with the work flow in the plant without any difficulties."
In Fruin's mind the biggest mental change for ONSITE is "instead of looking at a big pile of work for the week, we have changed our focus to keeping small lots of work flowing.
"I think we now realize the best way to get work through an area is to keep product moving through the area at the most productive level. Once understood by the finishing team, it was the key that opened the door to faster flow."
Major machine functions now have a limited number of "flags," which are put on project carts. For example, when the saw operator has all of his flags in use, he notifies the supervisor and is assigned to work on a job that is in process and that he has been cross-trained to do, until he is needed at the saw again.
The most significant improvement has been to reduce the amount of WIP in other areas of the plant. We have made a conscious decision not to start work just to keep an area or machine busy. We have to know that product can keep moving through the shop to start it, and we move team members to the work to keep it progressing.
A major mental adjustment was required by everyone when the large piles of work-in-process went away. Ralph Peterson commented that he had to get used to seeing concrete floors in the plant. In the past, large amounts of work-in-process was reassuring to the production team members; they didn't worry about a layoff when the plant was jammed. They now enjoy easily finding things and having more space to work in.
The company uses a weekly communication, "Hit The Mark," to highlight new ideas and efforts that improve ideas that increase productivity and profitability. The weekly paycheck enclosure repeats successes and encourages idea contributions.
There are financial rewards paid for employee contributed ideas — cash is always an effective motivator. The Suggestion Team studies the possible payback on ideas, processes and profitability.
The shop has seen what has happened and expects more dramatic changes from the Lean Team.
Are they achieving more effective plant utilization? These changes have contributed to an increased percentage of "shipped hours" to "allocated work hours" by about 25 percent in the last eight months.
Ed. note: Herb Meldahl has successfully aided companies and organizations in their marketing efforts for nearly four decades. He currently chairs the Architectural Woodwork Institute's (AWI) Marketing Committee.
author: By Herb Meldahl