Background
Fluid
Dynamics Corporation (FDC)* manufactures specialized water pumps.
Most of them are quite large. To support this, FDC has a machine
shop with about 75 employees and 125 machines. Roughly half of the
equipment has modern CNC. About 2100 parts are active.
Preparation
FDC's
product-process mix was far too complex for informal analysis and
grouping of parts into cells. Several months were
required for a Production
Flow Analysis to develop part families.
With
the part families and their respective cells defined, we then
designed a Macro- Layout showing the location of each workcell. The
detail layout of the cells was to be the responsibility of the
Kaizen teams.
A
simple cell was chosen for the first Kaizen effort. It consisted of
two nearly identical large Horizontal Machining Centers (HMC). The
part family had about 15 parts and these were further subdivided
between the HMCs. This helped to reduce
fixture changes between the machines but allowed any part to be made
on either machine in case of emergency.
The
Event
The
team consisted of cell operators from two shifts, engineers, and
maintenance personnel. The team analyzed the process, identified
opportunities and made improvements.
Initially,
problems were identified in the following areas:
-
Parts
were moved to other departments for washing and deburring.
-
Fixtures
had design defects.
-
Scheduling
often required parts that were unneeded while needed parts were
short.
With
some investigation, the team determined that washing and deburring
of the parts was easy and required little time. It was
suggested that these operations be brought into the cell and
performed by the operators internal to the 20-minute machine
cycle.
|
This
brought on protests from the machinists. Further investigation
revealed why the machinists did not like this idea. It seems that
most of their internal time was occupied measuring dimensions from
the previous part and recording these dimensions on a three-page QA
form. Further discussion revealed that all but one of these
dimensions was machine controlled and always within tolerance.
As
a result, the QA forms were greatly simplified thus allowing time
for the machinists to wash and deburr. With some
experimentation, it was found that the deburring and most washing
could take place without removing the parts from the fixtures and
this further streamlined work within the cell.
A
simple Kanban system was designed that allowed the
machinists to schedule their own operations with strong
communications with the assembly line.
Engineering
modified the fixtures and the operators made programming changes
which further improved machine productivity.
Results
In
the three months after cell startup, the pump assembly line was
never once stopped or inconvenienced by a parts shortage from this
cell.
WIP
inventory went from three months to three days.
Productivity improved by about 50%. Capacity was released for
increased production demand. Quality improved.
Other
Articles
Is
The Kaizen Blitz Right For You?
(Article)
Kaizen
Blitz Overdose (Article)
Kaizen
& One Piece Flow (Article)
Rationalized
Workcell Design (Article)
Strategos
Programs
Workcell
Design Seminar
Workcell
Blitz
Setup
Blitz
*
Note: While there is little that is proprietory about water pumps,
the controls and mounting of FDC's pumps are highly specialized.
Only three manufacturers in the U.S. build them. For this reason, we
cannot reveal the client's real name. |
