Thinking Lean in Lean Times

Is this the right time for a manufacturer to invest in capital improvements? 

Yes!  Kinetic Technology would answer unequivocally and do it now when production may be slowed and business reevaluation is probably on your To Do list.  When looking at the bottom line and cutting costs, do you have a budget line for material flow?  If not, maybe you should. Efficiently moving parts and inventory within your plant and distribution center offers an opportunity for cost reduction by speeding up production, freeing employees to move on to other work, saving energy and eliminating material waste. 

K-Tec identifies five considerations for planning and implementing a lean material handling system.

1. Assess current material flow & target problems.  Optimal material flow is critical to productivity and the bottom line. Implementing a lean manufacturing program requires time and commitment from top to bottom  Initiating  a lean program can include reducing waste in all segments of a manufacturing enterprise such as too much inventory on the factory floor, poor packaging design from suppliers, ineffective parts presentation in the operator work zones, eliminating material delivery delays and convoluted material delivery routing.

2.  Evaluate work methods on your factory floor.  Ask yourself if your plant floor is designed for optimal use of space for value-added tasks and minimal WIP (work in process inventory).  If not, consider redesigning your plant floor to a cellular model with parts being delivered to the individual cells on carts.  Investigate flexible assembly systems where carts / cart systems become moveable build platforms that can easily be redirected for more complex product variation.  This material handling approach can also reduce forklift use, wait-time for replenishment, minimize part touches and damage and increase overall efficiency. 

3.  Reduce costs by implementing a cart and tugger system.  Use forklifts when necessary; preferably confine the use of forklifts to the factory floor perimeter.  A cart and tugger system actually pulls more than a forklift while freeing resources to work elsewhere.   The total cost of a tugger and two 3-cart trains is 60% less than the cost of ownership for one forklift. This takes into consideration items such as purchase costs, maintenance expense, energy use, operator training and certification costs.

4. Simplify and reduce product and employee movement.  Carts can be moved in a train by a tugger or an employee can move up to a ton of material with less than 50lbs. push effort (breakaway).  For example, one manufacturer manually positioned multiple drums of fluid needed for machining centers into tight areas. Trains of drums, with 2 – 5 carts per train, now quickly move throughout the plant as opposed to fork trucks with drum clamps moving only one or two drums at a time.

5.  Choose common cart platforms where ever possible.  Strive to handle most of the material handling chores with as few cart variations as possible.  The corollary to this is to consider reducing container size and weight to allow ergonomic movement/handling (and reduce WIP).  Using a few of the most common cart platforms can significantly reduce fleet management costs and simplify logistics.  Often times using a roller deck, rotational flat deck or custom presentation upper on a standard cart base in conjunction with cart lifts and/or conveyors will meet most of the production or warehouse needs. 

In this downturn when management and factory personnel must improve operations and reduce costs, K-Tec encourages factory and distribution center management to consider the big picture.  Evaluate current material flow, come up with creative ideas for improvement and look to the future when operations resume full tilt.  Making an investment in improving material flow will save dollars.   Smart thinking and savvy re-tooling is key to surviving and making a profit in these difficult times.  K-Tec understands that lean material flow is critical to the financial well-being and success of today’s manufacturing and distribution operations.