LEAN improvement - from PowerPoint
to real factory overview
A large manufacturing unit in the furniture industry had obvious problems to achieve an even flow in the assembly unit. A number of hidden bottlenecks prevented periodical supplies and overtime, increased uncontrollably. Through a LEAN initiative it had been highlighted as a problem, but now they had to find a way towards a solution. Ortelius was given the responsibility and began to capture the problem scenario through business modeling in a cross functional group. There it became quickly apparent that production was lacking the overall view of the assembly unit. During a series of workshops, a business model was created visualizing how people, assembly lines, products and deliveries actually were interacting with each other. The visualization in inorigo® was transformed in 6 weeks to a pilot for dynamic planning; which could show both assembly lines and product components in real time. The effect was immediate, and three weeks later the planning process begun to self-adapt and capacity rose with high numbers.
Results:
- An estimated 30-40% capacity freed up in the assembly in 3 weeks from delivery.
- A full-scale pilot was installed and created the base for continued business development.
- Monitors were installed in the factory and gave everyone access to both the full and necessary details.
- Machine operators could adjust the pace from a holistic perspective instead of just running their “line”.
- Shift leaders could plan staffing more proactive.
- Downtime was possible to trace and to reschedule customer critical deliveries.