Manufacturing Case Study 1
JCE Harvey Consulting staff has helped manufacturing companies achieve their missions in a more efficient and cost effective manner, by reducing the various kinds of waste and solving some of the most pressing concerns in their industry.
Free Flow: A Case Study on Optimizing Workflow and Improving Quality
Case Overview
A manufacturing subsidiary, of a global multibillion dollar company was having issues with process workflow and organization in their materials departments.
This department was an internal supplier to multiple
departments, so this caused a ripple effect, which resulted in
the following issues: long product lead times, lack of process efficiency, and low product quality.
As a result, the management of this company approached
JCE Harvey Consulting principal for operational assistance
in their North America facility.
Approach
1. An internal team of process experts was comprised, and a workflow map was created. This enabled us to uncover hidden steps in the process and determine which were most prone to error.
2. The team reorganized the work space, and removed any unnecessary items in the area. After, a 5S was implemented and a work cell rearrangement was performed to foster better process flow and organization while cutting down on non-value added tasks.
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Client
The company in which this project was deployed, is a subsidiary of a South Korean based conglomerate that produces fuel cells.
3. The final phase was to update the department’s standard operating procedure, train the departmental staff on lean and 5S best practices, and create a control strategy to ensure a consistently high quality process.
Outcomes
Optimized Workflow and Reduced Lead Time: With unneeded items removed from the work space, this resulted in a more streamlined business process as evidenced by a 20% reduction in product lead time.
Improved Product Quality: As measured by a reduction in rework and defects in the deliverable. This directly resulted in reduced overall product cost as well as hard and soft costs measured in the tens of thousands for the company.
Increased Process Efficiency: The original product’s process was improved by removing non-value added steps and restructuring into a new process that was quicker for the company as a whole.
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