Metal Fabrication And Lead Strategies

Manufacturing in a lean way is a way of removing waste in different forms

, such as materials and time, to save on business costs. In the metal industry, lean manufacturing would focus on the processing being as efficient as possible and as little metal being wasted as possible. The main points of lean manufacturing insist that any waste manufactured should be minimized. Secondly, requirements in the market should be connected to manufacturing, and finally, there should be a value stream, where the whole process of the production of the product, with the suppliers and the consumer, should be one entity

Continuous Product Flow

Lean manufacturing promotes continuous product flow. The machinery and teams are located in work cells, using a process called cellular manufacturing, wherein products are manufactured all within these cells. Each process is done in its solitary cell. This system lessens wait and handling of materials. Lean manufacturing promotes just-in-time (JIT) strategy for inventories. JIT removes inventory by only manufacturing parts when they are needed. Establishing teams that have multiple abilities and can do multiple functions is also a function of lean manufacturing. It basically is moving away from the mass-production, production line environment.

Utilizing Bad Times to Grow

Amid these economically difficult times, businesses should take the chance to work on honing their manufacturing processes including speeding up processes as well as the skills of their employees. Too many lie inactive and wait for business to improve - ultimately laying-off employees. Instead, they should find an opportunity and capitalize on the current situation - to visit other business' locations and even customer's locations to see what they are doing to become leaner or stay lean. Businesses and people learn from each other. You have the chance to learn if there are procedural steps in a process that could be disposed of, to save your clients money and time. Search for ways to advance the quality of a product. Offer training opportunities to employees to make them feel more a part of the team.

Cost savings must be put in place but the quality of the product must be kept. Getting ideas from staff members on how to save on costs is crucial. They can determine when to shut down machinery when it is not needed as well as how to reduce wastes on the materials being used to formulate a product.

One business in the metal industry that takes a lean manufacturing approach is Maloya. Their lean approach makes them more efficient and also helps in them being green. They recycle any metal they do not use. In 2007 they received a DOL Lean Workforce Training Grant. Maloya produced a product line of heaters. Some of the product components only had a "touch time" of one hour, which means it only took an hour to make, but it still took two weeks from order to shipment for product fulfillment. By using lean tools, they analyzed the situation to discover how to take out the non-value add pieces in the process that caused delay. They also improved their value stream and did value stream mapping. They implemented the cellular work centers and minimized material handling times through the use of shadow boards to organize employee tools. By reorganizing component and raw material staging locations they were also able to improve work flow.

Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping is another tool in lean manufacturing. It helps to show how materials are flowing and what is needed to get a product to a customer. The person creating the map can look for improvements in the process and analyze the material flow. Processes should be put into three groups: waste, non-value add but needed, and value add.

Advantages of Lean

A benefit of implementing lean manufacturing in a metal fabrication setting includes waste reduction. This results in the lowering of costs to the organization. The flow of cash will be quicker and the cycles of production will become shorter. Not as many staff members will be needed to perform certain jobs. Inventories can be kept at a minimum level. Equipment can be utilized at a more efficient level and used more often and perform more manufacturing jobs. The quality of service toward customers will improve and additionally, products will gain in quality. Due to all of these improvements, profits and business expansion will increase due to lean manufacturing implementation.

by: Reto Hug.

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