Lean Manufacturing Yields Better Industrial Rollers and Graphic Arts Rollers
January 2012
As a part of our continuous improvement efforts we have been deploying Lean Manufacturing principles to the production and repair of rubber rollers and related accessories and we want to give you an update on our progress.
DEPLOYING LEAN MANUFACTURING
Customer listening indicated that to meet the needs of your business, we need to get you superior quality precision rollers quickly at a competitive price. We selected Lean as our main strategy to accomplish these goals, and focused 2011 on making measurable accomplishments on the journey. As many of you have been interested to discuss the Lean process and the impact on our business, we want to share the latest data with you.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs)
Based on detailed customer input, we determined that the KPIs for our Lean journey should include Lead Time, Complete On-Time Shipments, and Returns. The table below shows the year-end data for Imperial Rubber Products on each of these metrics, and further below is a graph with detail of our recent progress. In each case, you will see that while we are certainly not where we want to be, our trend lines are generally moving in the right direction.
HELPING YOU IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY AND LOWER COSTS
- We turn around rollers in an average of 5.7 days, from start to shipment.
- We ship 95% of our customers' orders complete and on-time.
- 99.25% of our production meets customers' acceptance criteria.
COMMITMENT TO CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
As those of you familiar with Lean principles know, while we are encouraged by our progress, we will never be "done." We have a clear definition of what "true north" is, and we have programs in place to continue making progress towards those measures in the year ahead. Our market surveys indicate that we are leading the industry in manufacturing and repairing rubber rollers with the benefit of Lean principles. If you would like to discuss our Lean programs and methods, please contact us. We enjoy the conversations and believe that we can all learn from a free and open exchange of production information with our trusted customers and partners.
WANT TO PARTNER WITH A LEAN COMPANY?
If you value relationships with partners who are continuously improving and bringing new ideas to the table, please email me (bobs@imperialrubber.com) or call me at 909-393-0528 to talk or set up a time to discuss in person.
With best wishes for success in the New Year,
Bob Schwartz,
Vice President
BACKGROUND ON LEAN MANUFACTURING
Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and identified as "Lean" in the 1990s. TPS is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer value. Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency based on optimizing flow; it is a present-day instance of the recurring theme in human history toward increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas. The goal of Lean then becomes the creation and maintenance of a production system which runs repetitively, day after day, week after week in a manner identical to the previous period. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing]. |
