Description:
This manufacturer of high temperature metal components and assemblies is a privately held, $25M business with an East Coast and West Coast facility.

Business Situation
A recent doubling of orders had forced this client into a severe backlog condition.  With local labor markets tight, they needed to look for alternative ways to manage the increase in sales.  Additionally, history had shown a spike in demand was typically followed by a severe falloff, by improving internal processes they could avoid the "hire and fire" scenario.

Services Provided
With the severe increase in orders, most of management's attention was on day-to-day activities, allowing the strategy to drift.  To begin, a Strategic Planning session was conducted to clearly define the goals, product strategy and key process improvement objectives.  Process re-design efforts then followed in both manufacturing and administrative areas.

Methods Used

• Strategic Planning
• Workshops
• Benchmarking

• Product Travel - 52% reduction
• Jobs in WIP - 94% reduction
• Number of processing steps - 52% reduction
• Throughput time - 99% reduction  (11wks to 8hrs)

Provided a $200,000 one-time cashflow contribution and a $40,000 recurring savings per year.

Client Comments:

• "creativity was enhanced throughout the strategy session by utilizing different techniques".... Vice President - Logistics
• "I liked the ability to make changes immediately...teaming of the cell"...trim operator
• "I learned more about my coworkers and my job"....machinist
• "it was great to see the active participation of management"....cell leader

Rowney Consulting 10910 S. Bremer Road Canby, OR 97013-6705 Phone: 503-266-5492 Fax: 503-266-3610 Cell: 503-989-1897 Email: mike@rowneyconsulting.com