Case Study

Background

A manufacturer was experiencing significant production delays and late customer shipments. When delays happened, sales staff would attempt to expedite orders where possible, but often had to call customers to apologize for not being able to meet committed order delivery dates. Sales were declining.

Solution

Investigation showed that scheduling, warehouse picking, calibration and final assembly caused the most delays. A series of targeted Kaizen events were run with those departments. End-to-end solutions were developed, addressing the root causes of the issues. Additionally, Lean awareness training was delivered to approximately 400 employees.

Results

Order delivery stabilized, greatly reducing expediting and eliminating the need for customer notification on order delays. Overall, the implementation of improved layout, 5S, and single piece flow methods led to inventory reductions and shorter lead times. Now that these issues have been resolved, the next round of workshops will be on increasing capacity to meet the new, higher level of customer demand.

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