The Challenge
Our client is a leading supplier of cutting tools for the woodworking industry. With a parent company located in Germany, the business operates centrally from Melbourne with support offices in Brisbane and New Zealand.
A downturn in the market due to the global financial crisis saw sales value and volume declining and many redundancies on the shop floor were required to stabilise the business and survive the crisis.
Challenges facing the business:
- Aggressive pricing strategies across the market to win limited business;
- Non competitive lead times and low customer satisfaction levels; and
- A chaotic shop floor layout resulting in high levels of idle time and ineffective production processes.
Our Solution
Our first step was to conduct our Phalanx Business Review and Stakeholder Survey to create an accurate assessment of the underlying issues throughout the business.
Key findings:
- Employee morale was low due to financial crisis;
- Employee levels of frustration were also high due to chaotic working environment;
- Poor production lead times resulted from shop floor chaos – employees lost valuable working time looking for tools and equipment to do their jobs; and
- Poor competitive pricing due to production inefficiencies
Our LEAN team was brought in to introduce Lean manufacturing tools such as 5S to improve housekeeping and workplace organisation.
Solutions implemented:
- Clearing away all non essential items in the workplace;
- Establish marked location stations for all required equipment. Tools were placed on shadow boards and labelled. Machines were labelled and floors were marked
- to show locations of machines, benches and trolleys;
- Work benches re-organised to facilitate the flow of work through the service centre;
- At the same time work benches were repaired and painted, floors were repainted and storage shelves were also painted; and
- Cleaning rosters were developed to ensure maintenance of the newly upgraded workshop.
REsults Delivered
The workplace has undergone a
dramatic improvement. Where there was chaos there is now order. A dirty workshop has been replaced with a clean well organised
work place. Morale has improved
significantly and people are proud to show off their workshop.
Production
lead times have been significantly
reduced, resulting in
improved customer satisfaction and cost
competitiveness.