(Just In) Time

Eli Whitney, Frederick Taylor, Henry Ford, And Taiichi Ohno- the roots of JIT & Lean Manufacturing.

Leadership article by Major Attila Bognar based on the classic film "Twelve O'Clock High

Related Seminar

Plant Layout & Facility Planning

Plant Layout methods from Mr. Lee's book, "Facility and Workplace Design".

Lean Briefing is intended only for those who request it.

Strategos Lean Briefing

The Newsletter of Lean Manufacturing & Factory Science

April 8, 2003 www.strategosinc.com

A Bomber an Hour

The Production Miracle At Willow Run

January, 1941-- War is only eleven months away and the U.S. Army Air Corps is woefully unprepared. Consolidated Aircraft Company has designed a huge four-engine bomber, the B-24 Liberator. The Army needs thousands of planes but Consolidated's manufacturing is so chaotic they cannot even build one ship a day.

Charles E. Sorensen, Vice President of Ford Motor Company and Edsel Ford visit Consolidated to see if Ford Motor can build components for the B-24 and thereby boost production. Sorensen sees the Consolidated situation as hopeless.

Overnight he sketches layouts and plans the largest industrial building ever built. A factory to produce not one ship per day but "A bomber an hour".

The resulting Willow Run Bomber Plant eventually built as many as 25 ships per day. In our new web page "A Bomber an Hour", Sorensen tells in his own words how he planned the layout and the production using principles that later became the core of Lean Manufacturing.

By 1944 the Eighth Air Force in Europe was launching daily raids with more than a thousand heavy bombers. An observer on the ground would wait 2-1/2 hours for the bomber stream to pass overhead. This campaign broke the Luftwaffe, disrupted transport, starved the German Army of fuel and paved the way for D-Day. Willow Run built 8800 of these heavy bombers.

I have a special connection to Ford Motor Company. My first manufacturing job was at Ford's Indianapolis Steering Gear Plant. Some of my colleagues had known Henry Ford and the fascinating history of this firm was almost everyplace.

There is much to learn from the story of Willow Run. At Strategos, we use these lessons in our facility planning. I hope you enjoy Charlie Sorensen's story. He was part of our "greatest generation".

All the best,

Quarterman Lee

Read Charlie Sorensen's story at: www.strategosinc.com/willow_run.htm.

More about Willow Run and the B-24 Liberator:

http://www.yellowairplane.com/Book_Reviews/Warren_Benjamin_Kidder/WillowRun_Cover.html

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