Supporting lean

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Magazine Article, Source : The Manufacturer
Zone : IT in manufacturing
Published : August 2007

While fundamentalists proclaim that IT has no part to play in a lean operation, Malcolm Wheatley discovers that, in reality, IT is being widely used to support the lean process

When Keighley, west Yorkshire-based plastic injection moulding specialist Fourfold Mouldings wanted to move from a cramped site in 19th century mill buildings to large, modern, purpose built premises, it took the opportunity to lock-in new lean manufacturing processes and new lean manufacturing layouts.

Using Delmia Quest, a PC-based modelling tool from CAD vendor Dassault Systèmes, a consultant from Northern Technologies’ advanced manufacturing centre in Burnley, Lancashire, developed a series of proposed layouts to simulate the best way to exploit the opportunities offered by the new site.

The production line at the new plant, for example, is now broadly U-shaped; with an operations flow that goes from raw material deliveries, through to granulation and colour mix, and then to the mould shop. Next to the mould shop is the clean room, with both the clean room and mould shop having ready access to the secondary operations and despatch areas.

And even though the new site is not substantially bigger than the old factory in terms of overall square footage, the improved layout has yielded significant room for expansion. There have been operational improvements, too: a new gantry crane serves the whole of the mould shop, replacing an old block and tackle, which has cut the time taken to change from one product to another through faster die and tool handling. Better access to tool storage has also improved changeover times.

Waste levels have also dropped. The improved process flow has decreased the number of stoppages significantly – and one of the biggest areas of waste in the business is machine stoppage, as every time a machine is stopped, 10 kilogrammes of material must be junked. And with 21 machines and the cost of materials varying from £800 per tonne to £3,900 per tonne, points out Martin Wilson, Fourfold’s managing director, unnecessary stoppages have a significant effect on Fourfold’s bottom line each year.

The modelling also had an impact on productivity. By grouping production machines by process – and sharing robotic resource between them – Fourfold found it was able to reduce staffing levels. In one instance, a single worker now looks after six machines, which would have been impossible in the old factory. Despite maintaining the same level of automation – and actually reducing the number of employees on the payroll – the production capacity of Fourfold has increased, reports Wilson.

“Thanks to new markets, we have been able to quadruple our turnover during the last decade. Now, our new, lean manufacturing operation will enable us to operate more efficiently than ever before – and thus increase our profitability still further,” he says. “While it was difficult maintaining two partially operational plants as we switched production from our old building to our new one over a period of six weeks, the benefits of the move have been tremendous – and the Delmia Quest modelling tool even helped us through the logistical nightmare of the transitional phase.”

But whatever the basis for lean simulation and modelling, manufacturers first need raw data – which needn’t call for complex data capture exercises. “In many manufacturers, the existing MRP or ERP system will often hold a lot of the information that’s required,” says Tom Wedgwood, a director of Great Malvern, Worcestershire-based Newton Industrial Consultants. “A lot of it will be rubbish, but buried in there will be some real nuggets, provided that you know where to look.”

And it’s remarkable, he says, the extent to which some quite simple analyses, using tools no more complex than an Excel spreadsheet, can reveal opportunities for improvement. Take throughput analysis, for example. “A starting point should be to compare actual throughput with the theoretically achievable throughput, based on equipment manufacturers’ specified speeds, feeds and other parameters. If you’re only getting 50 per cent of what you might expect, ask where the other four hours a day goes,” he recommends.

But don’t be surprised if some losses remain difficult to track down. High-frequency, low-duration stops are a classic example of downtime missed by conventional analyses, says Wedgwood – and sometimes only identified with difficulty with traditional analysis tools, which aim to track much longer stoppages. On a recent assignment, for instance, a high-speed packing line was found to be incurring half-second pauses every few seconds. “It was actually the biggest cause of downtime – and conventional analyses had missed it completely,” he says.

Finite scheduling systems are also a useful source of data. Thanks to the underlying plant data that must underpin a finite capacity schedule, “the system also acts as an agent for change – helping manufacturers to decide where to focus their improvement efforts,” notes Graham Hackwell, technical director at Chippenham-based finite scheduling specialist Preactor International, whose software is now used by over 2,000 manufacturers in 64 countries around the world.

For example, he points out, it’s possible to locate the bottlenecks within the manufacturing plant by looking at the time that orders spend queuing at resources. And by differentiating between an operation’s run time and its setup time – a fundamental aspect of a finite capacity scheduling application – the plant can identify those operations with the longest setup times, allocating engineering and improvement resource to reducing them.

Sometimes, ERP-based systems go beyond merely passively capturing the data, and supplement their pure ERP functionality with lean-supporting analysis and simulation software – usefully leveraging the core database, and requiring no further data collection or extraction. Take IFS, for instance, which has a number of relevant applications, including a process modelling tool called IFS Business Modeller, used to streamline a process flow and remove non-value adding steps and operations.

“I’d absolutely refute the notion that ERP systems can’t help with this kind of modelling and improvement activity,” says Mark Goodwin, IT manager at Fleckney, Leicestershire-based automotive supplier Coba Plastics, a manufacturer of interior trim. “We use the IFS tools extensively, and they’ve made a significant difference, with inventory levels dropping 40 per cent in just six months and quality levels improving,” he explains. “It’s made a huge impact both to the bottom line, and our profit margins.”

ERP systems – and enterprise systems generally, in fact – can help with lean implementations in another useful way, too. John Moore, managing director at Cabletec, a Weston-super-Mare based manufacturer of high-performance braid and wire for the aerospace, marine and rail industries, reckons that his company’s adoption of the WinMan ERP system has supported Cabletec’s three year old lean initiative in two key ways: freeing-up management time to concentrate on lean in the first place, and then ‘locking-in’ lean processes and improvements once identified.

Work-in-progress has been reduced by 50 per cent, with lead times also reduced by half. Defect rates have fallen from five parts per hundred to less than one part per thousand, while on-time delivery performance has risen from 80 per cent to 95 per cent. This would not have been possible without WinMan, says Moore. “Unlike our previous IT system which acted as a restraint to the business, WinMan has genuinely been an enabler and a facilitator. Not only has it encouraged people within the business to identify ways to reduce waste, it has also provided the means by which to achieve this.”

A similar message comes from adhesives giant Henkel. Again, although enterprise applications provide a useful input to the establishment of lean processes, their prime role has been to implement them. At Henkel’s Dublin, Ireland plant, says Yves-Edouard Desombre, the site manager, “over the past two years, there’s been a big thrust to increase visibility, move towards leaner replenishment through SAP-based just-in-time, and eliminate non-value adding tasks.”

Automatic data capture from end-of-line barcoding and labelling operations, he adds, has been one such easy win. “As a company, we are a major user of SAP – and the IT applications and tools we use must all either sit on top of SAP, or interface to it,” he stresses. “That way, we’re leveraging our core investment, as well as building on what we’ve already got in order to further our lean objectives.”

And beyond the factory floor, the focus is increasingly turning to leaning the supply chain itself, as well as the factories within it. Again, points out Updesh Dosanjh, a consultant at Denmead, Hampshire-based management consultants WCI, modelling solutions can help. “Companies are moving to offshore manufacturing, but not always accurately capturing the hidden costs of doing so,” he warns. “There’s a tendency to very visibly eliminate direct cost, but then overlook the hidden cost of managing the resulting international supply chain – not to mention the consequent lack of responsiveness and inflexibility.”

Real-time data visibility can help – especially when trying to plan and optimise operations in supply chains that stretch around the world. “To some extent, the popularity of outsourcing has actually hampered lean, because it has moved to remote locations activities that were previously managed in-house, or at least within the UK, where they were more controllable,” warns Gerard O’Neill, director, BT Global Services. “If a lean initiative is to successfully eliminate waste in such circumstances, visibility into suppliers’ and logistics partners’ systems is required.”

In an environment where not a few proponents of lean abhor IT altogether, it’s a bold – but eminently logical – assertion. As Star Trek’s Dr McCoy might observe, “It’s lean, Jim – but not as we know it.”