BIO07025: Please Refer To The Excel Sheet ‘Storage Solution Inc Metrics.’ Storage Solution Inc. Are Assembling Moveable:
Please refer to the excel sheet ‘Storage Solution Inc metrics.’ Storage Solution Inc. are assembling moveable drawer systems (see Figure 1).
They are having problems with their traditional factory layout (column 1 in spreadsheet), where they are manufacturing in a batch size of 5. They are not meeting the customer order of 40 products in a 60 minute shift, and are experiencing high amounts of work in progress costing the company money.
They are experiencing re–work, as some wrong parts are being used leading to delays and poor quality. The Process map can be seen in Appendix I.
1) A Lean Sigma team initially looks at some Lean tools, and makes layout improvements to the production area. There is some improvement in output, but the company are still experiencing high amounts of WIP and rejects (column 2 in spreadsheet).2) The team next reduces the batch size to a batch size of one (one piece flow). They see further improvement in output, and a reduction in WIP. However, they are still not making meaningful profit (column 3 in spreadsheet).3) The Team next look at Takt time and rearrange the process to ensure Line Balance. They introduce a Kanban system (column 4 in a spreadsheet).
