spedemanufacturing

Manufacturing is Changing. The Struggle is Real

Mon, 09 May 2022 16:24:21 GMT

Manufacturing is Changing. The Struggle is Real

The world has changed a lot in the past few years. The world is not the same as it was five years ago, from materials and parts shortages to rising material costs to labor shortages.

There are many reasons for these changes:

Aftermath of Covid-19
The war in Ukraine
Political decisions and policy changes
Consumer consumption

The list goes on.

The result is rising costs, labor shortages, and stock-outs.

So what is a manufacturer to do?

There’s only one choice, change and change quickly.

Manufacturers should be in a constant state of continuous improvement to remain competitive. This strategy is nothing new. But the rate of change must accelerate during times like these.

Let’s start with part shortages. Hopefully, your purchasing department has taken steps to establish strong partnerships with multiple suppliers over the years. If so, it can still be challenging to keep a steady supply of parts and materials coming in the door.

Here are some things you can do:

If you don’t have multiple sources for each commodity, you need to start looking for more sources. This is tedious and time-consuming, and your purchasing department will struggle to get new suppliers. Many companies turn to brokers. The result is higher costs.
Place orders with your current sources well in advance. This may mean buying parts up to a year in advance or more.
Try to secure commitments from your suppliers for regular deliveries.
Carry extra inventory, just in case. I know this is contrary to every Lean Manufacturing principle. But, in times like these, it’s critical.

Second, let’s deal with the labor problem.

There’s a labor shortage, and your company will need to respond. This is a simple case of supply and demand. Here are some tips:

Initially, you will need to pay your employees more. As supply shrinks, demand increases, and so do costs.
Automation equipment companies' businesses are booming because companies are automating to offset the rise in labor costs. That automation project that used to have a five-year payback period might be feasible now due to the increased labor costs.
Implement Lean Manufacturing and work to reduce costs in every part of your business.

Times are changing, and your company will need to change too. It’s a matter of survival because who knows when and if things will go back to how they were just a few short years ago.

SPEDE Hosts 2-Day Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp

Fri, 13 Aug 2021 17:28:11 GMT

SPEDE MANUFACTURING HOSTS LEAN MANUFACTURING 2-DAY BOOT CAMP

Whether you’re new to Lean, an experienced Lean practitioner or a Lean Champion; this Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp is for you.

The Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp is 2 days!

Wednesday, October 20 - 8 - 8:30 AM for registration, until 4 PM

Thursday, October 21, 8:30 AM - 4 PM

Certificate of Completion will be provided to every participant.

An intensive 2-day boot camp designed to help you learn the tools you need to implement Lean Manufacturing and how these tools can be used to help your business succeed . This course is designed to teach you what you need to know to successfully implement Lean Manufacturing. Companies today are facing tough times in an ever more unpredictable and competitive marketplace. Learn the techniques others are using and how Lean Manufacturing can change your business. These concepts originally developed by Toyota have been transforming companies around the world. Don’t be left behind.

You will gain the knowledge and confidence you need to make Lean work for you and your company.

Course Information:

This is a hands-on Boot Camp. We will work through practical Lean implementation examples to help you better understand and apply the concepts.

Save big $$$
Improve quality
Reduce Inventory
Increase productivity

Who Should Attend:

Managers
Engineers
Supervisors
Maintenance Personnel
Project Managers
Operators
Material Planners
Team Leaders
Supply Chain
Quality Personnel
If you are new to Lean Manufacturing or an experienced Lean practitioner, there is something for everyone.
If you’ve been disillusioned by Lean or are skeptical of the process, let us change your mind.
If your company has implemented some Lean principles but you don’t see what all the hype is about, let us help you get to the next level.
If you want to advance your career and become a Lean expert, let us help you along that path.
If you have unanswered questions that have hampered your progress, we’ll help you remove those obstacles and find success.

Seminar Leader:

Daniel J. Timco is a recognized expert in Lean Manufacturing and has been conducting training on this subject for major corporations for over 25 years. He has received many awards for his work in Lean including the Society of Manufacturing Engineer’s prestigious Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. He has authored articles on Lean featured in prominent industry publications. Mr. Timco has led Lean implementations saving corporations millions of dollars each year. His experience in design, development and manufacturing enables him the ability to teach practical ways of achieving breakthroughs using Lean techniques.

He is also a Certified Six Sigma Blackbelt and he understands the important linkages between Lean and Six Sigma. His areas of expertise include:

Operational Excellence
Lean Manufacturing (Kanban, Continuous Flow, Kaizen, 5S’s, Cell Design, TPM, Quick Changeover, Value Stream Mapping)
Project Management
Six Sigma
Design for Six Sigma
Ergonomics
Stage Gate Product Design
Structured Problem Solving
New Product Development
Global Implementation of Lean and Six Sigma
Lean Executive Leadership

Lean Manufacturing / Six Sigma: "Been There, Done That"

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 03:19:10 GMT

Lean Manufacturing / Six Sigma: "Been There, Done That"

By Daniel Timco, LSC-Sensei, CSSBB, CMQ/OE, CQA

VP Product and Process Development at SPEDE Manufacturing

"I've seen all this Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma stuff before. Over the last 20 years, I've been to classes called Just-In-Time, Flow Manufacturing, and Lean Sigma. We've been there, done that, and it didn't work. These manufacturing 'movements' are cyclical. Managers come and go, and these manufacturing movements come and go with them."

These are some of the comments I've heard from various people at companies I’ve worked for in the past when we started our Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma efforts. Take a walk through one of the plants, and you may see remnants of past Lean Manufacturing efforts. You may also find a manufacturing cell that has aged somewhat over the years. Posted on the wall, you may see a Value Stream Map or an out-of-date Control Plan. Much of the Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma that was done in the company is long gone. Little to no continuous improvement was done over the years.

If you've worked for a large company for any length of time, you've probably been part of a Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma seminar in one form or another. They are ranging from a 1-day crash course to a week-long Kaizen event or Green Belt Training Class. These programs are almost always conducted by an outside consultant who visits your company, does his thing, and leaves as quickly as he came. The concepts are presented at a macro level. The class ends, and people file the class binder on their shelf next to the JIT binder from 2001 and the Kanban manual from 2013.

What does all this mean?

Are our Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma programs doomed to failure?
Have we created a pessimistic culture where people ride the continuous improvement wave hoping it will soon fade away?
How do companies prevent Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma from becoming a fad?
How do we cultivate a lasting “Continuous Improvement” mindset that affects the entire organization?

Here are a few suggestions of strategies that I’ve employed over the years:

Develop Experts Internal to Your Company

Instead of hiring a consultant for a few days, develop people internal to the company who are resident "experts.” These people can take Lean Manufacturing to the next level. This demonstrates the company's commitment to lasting cultural changes. These individuals can be valuable on-site resources for consultation on special projects. It helps to have someone people can go to when questions arise to help guide those trying to develop their Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma skills. (Look what had happened when these ideas were implemented in the world of Six Sigma with Black Belts and Green Belts). If you don’t currently have internal experts, select highly motivated people to attend training and implement projects based on their training. Develop a relationship with an organization that you can partner with long-term to help develop these experts. If this is something you’d like to do, contact us at SPEDE Manufacturing and we can work out a plan to help your company succeed.

Understand the Difference Between Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma

Is there a difference? Absolutely! Some consulting companies or “so-called” experts have combined these methodologies over the years to confuse further people who want the understand how to use these programs to improve their business.

Here’s a high-level breakdown:

Lean Manufacturing:

A toolset used to create a continuous flow. Lean Manufacturing helps a company create continuous flow and includes all the tools needed to happen.

Six Sigma:

A toolset used to reduce variation. Six Sigma helps companies reduce variation and includes all the tools to helps reduce defects.

Both Lean and Six Sigma help improve quality and efficiency but in two very distinct and different ways. Understanding when and where to use the right tools makes all the difference. This is a skill that takes a strong commitment to learning and years to develop.

Go Beyond the Basics

Most people have a knowledge of Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma at the macro level. But, when you get into the details of implementing these practices, the concepts can be confusing. How do I know which tools to use? When do I use them? You need to go beyond the basics and get down to details.

From a Lean perspective, teach people how to:

Develop work cells
Implement 1-piece flow
Line balance
Calculate and setup kanbans
Implement poka-yoke
Etc.

From a Six Sigma perspective, teach people how to:

Use quality tools
Identify inputs and outputs
Do experimentation
Develop control plans
Etc.

If your company does not have the expertise to train people, SPEDE can help with this. Let us know, and we can work with you on a plan to help you start people on the path to becoming experts.

Provide Consistent Management Support and Reward Successes

Managers must lead by example and show everyone that Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma are here to stay. When successes occur, reward them. These actions communicate the company's long-term commitment to continuous improvement.

Use Software and Equipment to Facilitate Lean and Six Sigma Principles

As Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma’s popularity grows, more and more tools become available to facilitate these concepts. Some software and equipment naturally encourages Lean and Six Sigma and prevents wasteful, defect-prone actions and processes.

Examples of these principles are:

Workbenches where product is built on moving carts (or pallets) that limit work-in-process and encourage 1-piece flow
Small work surfaces that limit space for unwanted sub-assemblies or clutter which encourages 5 S's
Flow racks that enable first in, first out (FIFO)
Software to monitor critical-to-quality metrics
Sensors to identify defects before they happen

These examples are an excellent way to help perpetuate Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma on the shop floor, even with employees’ high turnover. There is no substitute for continuous incremental improvements and training, but these tools can help.

Get People Involved

The best way to help ingrain these ideas in people is to get them involved. Training is good, but people tend to forget unless the tools are used. Encourage people to find a project and use what they've learned.

Create Buy-In

When initiating a Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma project, select a team that includes manufacturing engineers, design engineers, engineering managers, manufacturing supervisors, operators, purchasing, etc. Not everyone has to be involved in every meeting, but updates on the project's progress should be sent to as many people as possible. In this way, everyone is aware of and involved in the changes, often radically different from what people are used to. Buy-in is created, and lasting success is more probable.

Summary

History has proved that Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma are here to stay. The companies that embrace these concepts are more likely to succeed long-term. The question is, "Will your company embrace Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma and make them a permanent company strategy and ultimately a way of life?" The answer to this question will determine whether your company will survive in the ever more competitive and volatile manufacturing world that we live in.

About the Author

Daniel Timco is the Vice President of Product and Process Development at SPEDE Manufacturing. He has spent most of his career involved in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Design for Six Sigma, and Operational Excellence and has developed and taught various courses on the subject. He has helped several companies create a continuous improvement culture and led organizations to save millions of dollars.

SPEDE Manufacturing is a leading contract manufacturer of mechanical and electrical parts assembly with team members working together to bring innovative product solutions to market every day. We have two production and assembly facilities that enable us to scale with production volumes. SPEDE Manufacturing (SPEDE) differentiates itself from other contract manufacturers by using industry “best practices” like Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and Value Engineering to help our clients go from something that works to a best-in-class manufacturing operation. It’s all part of the package when SPEDE engages with companies to do their contract manufacturing.

Contact SPEDE today , and let’s get started.

dan.timco@spedemanufacturing.com

A look at how NCS Solutions has applied lean strategies to their processes.

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 21:08:07 GMT

A look at how NCS Solutions has applied lean strategies to their processes.

Manufacturers will agree that Lean Manufacturing is key to making large scale improvements to manufacturing operations.

When you think of various types of manufacturing operations, church offering envelope manufacturing doesn’t necessarily come to mind. But offering envelope manufacturing has been around for a long time and NCS Solutions has been manufacturing offering envelopes for over 100 years. It takes sophisticated processes and equipment to produce envelopes at speeds of over 1000 envelopes per minute on a single machine. It also takes sophisticated data management systems to manage and provide the variable data needed to make these products.

Offering envelopes are an integral part of a church’s way to receive tithes and offerings from church members. The offering envelope not only delivers the contribution, but also the needed information for church records. This requires a manufacturing process that can efficiently manage large amounts of variable data including names, addresses, unique identifiers, and barcodes at very high speeds.

Church offering envelope companies have traditionally had the same process from company to company for many years. Advances in manufacturing equipment and computer systems have helped them gain incremental improvements over time…until now. NCS Solutions has been on a continuous improvement journey with SPEDE Manufacturing , and the key component to these improvements has been Lean Manufacturing.

Manufacturers will agree that Lean Manufacturing is key to making large scale improvements to manufacturing operations. Tools like 5S, Kanban, Quick Changeover, Kaizen and so on are all about one thing, waste elimination. Waste is anything that is not “value added” and “anything that your customer would not be willing to pay for”. By implementing improved processes using Lean Tools, a company can make incremental improvements that save time and money. But the real value of Lean Manufacturing is what happens when a company achieves Continuous Flow. That is the ultimate goal of Lean. All of these other tools (5S, Kanban, etc.) support the goal of achieving Continuous Flow.

Church offering envelope manufacturing has followed the same general “Batch Style” processes for decades. Batch manufacturing is when a process produces parts of a product in functional work areas and large batches of product move from step-to-step. This creates a lot of “Waste”. The chart below shows the “Batch” process that church offering envelope companies have used for many years. Factories arranged in functional areas create waste. Every time there is a break in the process, wastes accumulate costing companies time and money in the form of inventory, material handling, scrap, delays, and rework.

SPEDE Manufacturing set out transform NCS Solutions' process using Lean Manufacturing to create a Continuous Flow Process that has transformed their business. The goal was to create Continuous Flow from the front office all the way through product shipment. The chart below shows the improved manufacturing process.

The Road to Success

Anyone who tries to go from Batch Manufacturing to Lean Manufacturing will tell you that it is not easy. It takes years and there are a lot of struggles along the way from managing change to technology challenges to having the right people to guide the process. It takes time, investment, and perseverance. NCS Solution's journey.

Step 1 – Value Stream Mapping (identifying waste)

The first step was to create a Value Stream Map of the process. This is key to identifying Wastes and looking for ways to create Continuous Flow. A team was assembled, and the Current State Value Stream Map was created.

The biggest challenge to creating Continuous Flow was figuring out how to print all of the images, static data and variable data all at the same time to eliminate multiple process steps. This had not been done successfully in this industry to date. If this could be done, pre-press, collating and the secondary printing processes could all be eliminated enabling Continuous Flow. The team had to challenge “the way things had always been done”. The result has been nothing short of amazing.

NCS Solutions worked with Xerox Corporation and developed a printing process for envelopes that was truly something that had never been done before. Technical challenges with data and functionality had to be overcome. In the end, the result was so innovative, NCS Solutions obtained a provisional patent for the new process.

The organizational successes / improvement estimates in working with SPEDE Manufacturing for NCS Solutions:

Labor Reduction 50%
Floorspace Reduction 75%
Lead Time Reduction 70%
Inventory Reduction 90%
Shift Reduction 50%

spedemanufacturing

Manufacturing is Changing. The Struggle is Real

Manufacturing is Changing. The Struggle is Real

The world has changed a lot in the past few years. The world is not the same as it was five years ago, from materials and parts shortages to rising material costs to labor shortages.

There are many reasons for these changes:

Here are some things you can do:

Second, let’s deal with the labor problem.

Times are changing, and your company will need to change too. It’s a matter of survival because who knows when and if things will go back to how they were just a few short years ago.

SPEDE Hosts 2-Day Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp

SPEDE MANUFACTURING HOSTS LEAN MANUFACTURING 2-DAY BOOT CAMP

Whether you’re new to Lean, an experienced Lean practitioner or a Lean Champion; this Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp is for you.

The Lean Manufacturing Boot Camp is 2 days!

Course Information:

Who Should Attend:

Seminar Leader:

Lean Manufacturing / Six Sigma: "Been There, Done That"

Lean Manufacturing / Six Sigma: "Been There, Done That"

What does all this mean?

Develop Experts Internal to Your Company

Understand the Difference Between Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma

Here’s a high-level breakdown:

Lean Manufacturing:

Six Sigma:

Go Beyond the Basics

If your company does not have the expertise to train people, SPEDE can help with this. Let us know, and we can work with you on a plan to help you start people on the path to becoming experts. Provide Consistent Management Support and Reward Successes

Use Software and Equipment to Facilitate Lean and Six Sigma Principles

Get People Involved

Create Buy-In

Summary

About the Author

A look at how NCS Solutions has applied lean strategies to their processes.

A look at how NCS Solutions has applied lean strategies to their processes.

If your company does not have the expertise to train people, SPEDE can help with this. Let us know, and we can work with you on a plan to help you start people on the path to becoming experts.

Provide Consistent Management Support and Reward Successes