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Investing in the Future — Part 2
Work on the new lineside building is complete and we now have the task of filling it with a months worth of “runner” boxed glass and shower doors.
In this case, the term “runner” was defined as an average of
one or more per month. The building allows us to review and improve the way
we work.
Here is a vision for the shower door section…A customer calls off ‘x’
number of shower doors. They are loaded direct from lineside and delivered
to the customer exactly when required. This leaves a “hole” in
our month’s stock, a trigger (eg a simple A4 card) is passed onto shower
doors which initialises the processes that gets ‘x’ number of
doors manufactured and into lineside.
This means that the guys will only produce what is required, when it is required. A scene hopefully familiar to those that have run the business simulation in the Lean training. This approach cuts out the piles of WIP that build up in the work area and has been converted into a saleable item that’s waiting call off by the customer.
So how will we achieve the vision? Well we’re almost there! The Lean project in Factory 1 got the area ready and we are now experimenting with a system to get those parts which are rolled and bent in Factory 2 “flowing” into shower doors on a regular basis. Glenn Mason and his team have been working hard to achieve this goal and after a few teething problems, it is starting to come together. When we’re confident the system is working, we can begin kitting shower doors prior to assembly. The ability to see that all the parts to finish a job are present before it is started is always an advantage.
The overall layout of Factory 1 has been greatly improved and the flow of raw materials, especially Perspex is much better. As you can seen from the diagram, Perspex will come straight into the router, move onto moulding if required, then out to production or shower doors.
The vision applies equally well to boxed glass and once this is up and running, the amount of stock held in lineside could be reduced to allow space for other product lines to run on a similar basis.
