Page 252 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

230 Cha pte r F i f tee n

• They found they could achieve these numbers with much less manpower. They
reduced from 336 md/10,000 units … to the plan of 210 md/10,000 units … and
then to a new low of 135 md/10,000 units. All with virtually no extra investment.
And they were just getting started!
How the Gains Were Achieved
The story of the Bravo Line is like many Lean stories. It was not just an effort at making
a process Lean through quantity control efforts. It was both an effort at taking care of
the foundational issues of quality and utilizing quantity control tools to make further
waste reduction improvements. Note that the majority of the huge gains came from the
implementation of the foundational issues.
The Three Fundamental Issues of Cultural Change
Just how did the company score on the three fundamental issues of cultural change? A
good argument can be made that the reason they got into these problems was due to a
weakness in their culture.
However, for the time being let’s focus on the culture that surrounded this change
in the process. They affected a successful change in the process because, at least for this
project, they had good leadership. A plan existed that was understood by those involved
and they acted upon that plan. Second, they clearly had the motivation to proceed. The
escalating labor costs for the line were making the product unprofitable, and the situa-
tion was deteriorating. Finally, they recognized they did not have the necessary prob-
lem solvers in place, so they acquired them. It remains to be seen if they will
institutionalize these cultural issues, but for the moment they properly addressed the
three fundamental issues of cultural change and so this effort was a huge success.

Foundational Issues Addressed
Before the quantity-control issues could be implemented, foundational quality-control
issues needed to be implemented. Review the House of Lean and notice all the founda-
tional issues that were addressed, including:
• Problem solving by all
• Understanding variation
• Process stability (Cp, Cpk)
• Cycle times reductions
• Standard work
• Availability
Quantity Control Techniques Applied
While these were being addressed, we were able to also implement the quantity control
techniques, including:

• Jidoka
• One-piece flow, small lot flow
• Balancing to takt
• Minimizing lot sizes
• Reducing both WIP and lead times, which caused a significant improvement in
the flow