Page 255 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

The Story of the Bravo Line 233

And the Story Goes On
In this case, we should make these changes and then proceed to implement the pre-
scription and utilize even more quantity control techniques. Each improvement brings
about a new present state that will have another set of opportunities—and the story
goes on, forever.

Chapter Summary
The story of the Bravo Line starts with a simple request. The plant manager wants to
make more product, faster, using less labor. Something all managers want. To reach that
end, earlier, the company embarked on a Lean initiative, but it can now be seen that
they had some serious flaws in their approach. First, it was apparent they wanted more
to appear to be Lean, rather than actually be Lean. However, the biggest flaw in their
approach was that they had not evaluated the foundational issues very well, if at all.
Consequently, once we backtracked and took care of the quality control issues, progress
was possible. After implementing the quantity control techniques on this stronger foun-
dation, even greater gains were achieved. In all, we were able to reduce first-piece lead
time by 97 percent, reduce lot lead time by 81 percent, and in the end reduce the required
manpower by 60 percent. As a result, not only was the Bravo Line leaner and its process
more robust, but the gains made were huge and achieved early.