Sector: Manufacturing Heavy Equipment Manufacturer Scope: Provide Lean support to the operations for the implementation of Standardised Work and Pull Systems Application: The company had a campaign to implement Standardised Work across all cells of the operation within a tight timeframe and used a workshop approach to complete this with LMR’s coaching assistance. With long cycle times of production against takt and unusually large items weighing 100 kilos or more, LMR had to tailor the full Standardised Work System (SWCT, SWC, WES and Yamazumi) to cope with the demand placed on work sequence, timing and potential introduction of overburdening. LMR helped to introduce pull systems for all key parts of the operation using the principles of Just in Time, particularly those of Pull Systems, Heijunka and One Piece flow.

Results: The kanban implementation has reduced inventory in the overall value chain and improved throughput and delivery accuracy. The Standardised Work implementation is providing sustainability and consistency of production. The team leader to team members ratio has been reduced from 1:22 to 1:11 without increasing headcount, thus providing a productivity and quality improvement beyond expectation. ROI on LMR resource 14:1. Future Plans: Reduce the team leader to team member ration further to drive quality control and reduce failures in the field.