Results:
In light of moving some of its production offshore, an SME rubber products manufacturer questioned the entire business process for one of its product lines. CLS generated Value Stream Maps (VSMs) for engineer-to-warehouse processes, challenging the status quo and management ‘thought inertia’ at all process steps to identify sixteen projects/studies, which together carried a three-month payback and $170k in annual savings.
Background:
The company’s automotive coolant hose operation produced over 4,600 different SKUs, in batch sizes as small as five pieces. The engineer-to-warehouse process was reasonably effective for large production runs, but it was ill-equipped for establishing production lot sizes and stock holding quantities for new SKUs, and it contained unnecessary overheads and overproduction opportunities associated with small production runs.
What we did:
Over the course of just ten days CLS worked with various company Team Members and leaders to:
- analyse current and forecast sales data for all coolant hose SKUs to advise improved production triggering, stocking and pricing decisions
- depict all engineer-to-warehouse processes using Value Stream Maps and spaghetti diagrams to challenge processing methods
- generate a set of sixteen targeted actions for improving the overall process
- develop detailed implementation plans for all targeted actions
- estimate the impacts of planned improvements
Type of Business:
Manufacturer
Sector contact for more information:
Todd Standal