Strategy : Electronic kanban management helps lean effort

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Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer US
Published : 11 Jul 2002 10:37

Demand management key to lean implementation at Detector Electronics

Dick Bredehoft’s team at Detector Electronics was able to see immediate cycle time benefits from their lean implementation. But following the initial rollout, they struggled to keep the system flowing smoothly.

“We could set the lines up using spreadsheets, but it was hard to sustain them. The more products you set up on kanbans, the harder it is to make changes,” said Bredehoft, vice president of operations. “We were getting a good improvement in productivity, but we could see that if we had a tool to manage demand a little better, we could get even more improvements.”

Detector Electronics, a $60 million manufacturer of industrial fire and gas detection equipment, started its lean implementation two years ago following a customer satisfaction survey. “We found our customers were expecting significantly shorter lead times than what we’re able to deliver on a regular basis. We were using cellular manufacturing and manufacturing products in batches,” said Bredehoft.

Based on visits to local manufacturing sites using lean and an introductory seminar conducted by JCIT International, the company decided to roll out a lean implementation. “We felt this was definitely the way to reduce our lead time, reduce our inventory, and also improve productivity,” said Bredehoft.

Although pleased with the initial results after changing over three production lines, Bredehoft felt his organization needed a software tool to help them sustain a constant flow. “We had looked at trying to do it internally with our MRP system and thought maybe we could do some customer programming. But that didn’t seem to be feasible. To make this work and maximize the benefits of it, we needed software support,” he explained.

After a software search, the company purchased and deployed Collaborative Flow Manufacturing (CFM) from Pelion Systems. The main reason for the selection was the demand management features of the software, said Bredehoft. He describes the application as intuitive and easy to use. “We had the software up and running within a week,” he said.

The main benefit of CFM to Bredehoft’s team is its ability to recalculate the kanbans and make adjustments. “We’re in the process of bringing up a printed circuit board line. We have 200 different assemblies that go through there with significantly different processes. Trying to do that on a manual spreadsheet would be extremely difficult. Doing it with the software makes it a lot easier,” he said, noting that he expects to see a return on his investment in about nine months.