Case Study-Duraweld

1. List the 5S and comp atomic number 18 to the tippytoe implementation at Duraweld. If there atomic number 18 differences, explain them. The 5S principles which originated from Japanese terms of seiri (sort), seiton (set in company), seiso (shine), seiketsu (standardize) and shitsuke (sustain) are used to create efficient, c contestation and vigorous organised constituteing environment. Sort refers to ensuring that each item in a workplace is in its congruous place or identified as unnecessary and removed.When sorting is well implemented, communication between workers is improved and product quality and productivity are increase Set in order The second stage of 5S involves the orderly arrangement of needed items so they are easy to use and accessible for anyone to find. Orderliness eliminates go down on in ware and clerical activities. Shine refers to a clean work area. This maintains a safer work area and problem areas are quickly identified. An important collapse of sh ining is Mess Prevention. In other words, dont allow litter, scrap, shavings, cuttings, etc. , to land on the floor in the startle place. standardize gist to formalized procedures and practices to create consistency and ensure that all steps are performed correctly. Orderliness is the core of standardization and is maintained by Visual Controls. Sustain mode to keep the process going with training, communication and organisation structure. This last stage of 5S is the discipline and commitment of all other stages. Without sustaining, the workplace terminate slowly revert back to being dirty and chaotic. That is why it is so crucial for the workers to be empowered to improve and maintain their workplace.When employees take pride in their work and workplace it after part lead to greater job satisfaction and higher productivity. Among the benefits of implementing 5S System- * Improve safety * Decrease down time * Raise employee morale * Identify problems more quickly * Develo p control through visibility * Establish convenient work practices * Increase product and process quality * arm employees pride in their work * Promote stronger communication among staff * Empower employees to sustain their work area Duraweld applied sort and set in order principles by using a shadow box as congruous apparatus storage.Storage areas for quick moving materials were set line-side. Labels were used to ensure tools were stored in proper place. These implantations have help to knock down workers travel time as all machines, tools, and information related to their task is set within a defined area. Duraweld ensure shine / cleanliness is practice at the factory. Cleaning and maintenance procedures are advertised in the factory. The floors under the machines were purposely pied in gabardine so as to ensure that spilled/oil leak can easily detected which can prevent corrective maintenance. Duraweld created two-cell manufacturing units for repeat stock products.The floo r was painted to define the work area, aisle space and location of necessary items. By linking the routes together, the production team managed to reduce conveyance and set-up time, build awareness of previous/ bordering process and increase productivity. This standardized process was further enhanced by the implementation of Kanban cards the visual management outline that incorporates scheduling and maintenance. The Kanban cards delegate what to produce, when to produce and how much to produce. These standard operating procedures has help to reduce over-production at Duraweld.Furthermore its pull as opposed to press out system allows better regulation of talk terms stocks in the production cycle. Among the key factors which lead to successful lean implementation in Duraweld is through its sustain processes. The company ensures its employees from shop floor to the top managements are committed to the lean programme. Proper communication sessions via workshops, training were hel d to explain about the changes, how it affect them, the benefit etc. This helps to instil positive values and make everyone be part of the system employee engagement.Duraweld has also invested in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to micromanage stock variation and seasonality. This system link operation across the organisation. The practicality of 5S principals can be seen through various implementations in Durawell as explained above. What makes the implementation of these principles throughout the organisation a big success is its employees engagement that makes the lean system as part of their culture in their work place and organisation as a whole. The principle aim of a 5S system is improved safety, efficiency, and employee morale.By deciding what should be kept, where it should be kept, and how it should be kept, 5S eliminates abandonful clutter and creates ownership of processes among workers. The results of 5S are both visually and economically dramatic. 2. Desc ribe which kind of waste was eliminated for each lean implementation at Duraweld. Can you think of other types of waste that could be eliminated? Waste is defined as non-value added activity or expense that the customer is non paying for. By eliminating waste in the operations, we can reduce lead times, increase quality and decrease costs.Before we can eliminate waste from the processes, we need to be able to identify it. The following are the wastes most commonly associated with Lean. * Transportation Is there unnecessary (non-value added) movement of parts, materials, or information between processes? * Waiting ar people or parts, systems or facilities idle waiting for a work cycle to be completed? * Overproduction Are you producing sooner, faster or in greater quantities than the customer is demanding? * Defects Does the process result in anything that the customer would deem unacceptable? Inventory Do you have any raw materials, work-in-progress (WIP) or finish goods that ar e non having value added to them? * Movement How much do you move materials, people, equipment and goods within a processing step? * Extra Processing How much extra work is performed beyond the standard required by the customer? At Duraweld, the 5S (Sort, Set to order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain) was the cornerstone that helps the organisation eliminating the waste. The first step taken by Duraweld was converting a push manufacturing flow to a pull process by creating a visual management system of Kanban card.The cards indicate what to process, when to process and how much to produce. not only it reduces over-production but allows better regulation of intermediate stocks in production cycle. Only the required amount is produced in every stage. This process eliminate waste no work was carried out unnecessarily, machine time is lesser, better utilisation of space in factory. The use of shadow carte du jours helps to organise the es displaceial tools. Relevant machines and too ls were aggregated in cells. Floors were painted in white to assist warning of maintenance issues or detect early wear.Labelling program ensures item/tool used returned to their designated location. This helps in reducing motion of workers i. e. one of the wastes in production line whereby workers can find all machines, tools, and information related to their task is set within a defined area without having to travel around to find what they need. The preventive maintenance by ensuring early detection of wear machine or tools can reduce maintenance cost. The 3S sort, sort in order and shine exercises as explain above also found waste from plastic cuts from the production line which can be recycled and reinserted the manufacturing cycle.The implementation of visual management technique and clear work area organisation ensure people were kept working which means the resources are full utilised. This eliminates unproductivity among the workers their movements are fully controlled no t only by the supervisors but also by the workflow process/schedules. Duraweld made big investment by using an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to manage stock variation and seasonal stock adjustments. The system allows materials movements, stocks, and production schedules to be managed and monitored through a database in a computer.By using this technology, Duraweld can reduce its manpower cost whereby less supervisor is require to monitor the database as compared to more supervisor required to monitor each tasks if its done manually. Communication is the key success to sustain the lean implementation in the organisation. Clear message was sent across the board on how the changes is require to be done, the benefits and the impact of the implementation to the workers effectively communicated. This not only gets rid of grievances among the workers which are a waste in any organisation but improve employee morale and create sense of belonging to the organisation.T he tracking and elimination of waste is an on-going process. When waste is not actively sought-after(a) and removed, it will continue to build in your company. 3. Considering Durawelds situation, explain which elements of the lean system you would further implement and what would be their positive consequences on the company. As discussed in question no. 2, one of the important elements in the lean system is eliminating the waste which in Durawelds case, the 5S systems are used as a tool to eliminate the wastes within its factory.On top of that the use of Kanban cards system help to increase efficiency in its production cycle by replacing the push system with the pull system. In my opinion, the following elements of Lean can be further implement at Duraweld- 1) Visual Management A Standard run Procedure and a step-by-step instruction which implemented through the visual management such as a manual board/instruction board at each workstation and machine can be used to show how each task is perform or machine is operated.When this visual management is fully utilised, not only the production flows are in order, job rotation among workers can be perform effectively any employees can be prepare to do any task or operate any machine by referring to the instruction board. This will reduce the company dependency of particular experient workers. Everyone in the shop floor is multi-tasked. 2) Quality at the source The quality at source require the production line to do things right the first time. This will eliminate the opportunity of waste i. e. waste of raw material, defect outputs etc. hich will help to reduce cost. At the early stage of production cycle, the workers will inspect, analyse and control their own work to guarantee that the goods and services passed on to the next process stage meet the specification/requirement. 3) Continuous progression Conventional wisdom told us if it aint broke, dont fix it The certainity of todays business environment is th at if were not improving our business processes and meet and exceed customers expectation, our business will not survive. Many organizations create change either by vision or by crisis.The latter seems to be the most prevalent. A major crisis takes place that forces a company to make an improvement. When a crisis hits, its because the vision or change efforts were not sufficient to avoid it. Quick fixes are then applied, and teams are formed to root out the problems. We have to take the time to step back, identify, and analyze what the real issues are, and the type of method to use. There are numerous improvement choices Kaizen, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, TQM, Process Reengineering, Value Propositions, etc. 4) Standardized OperationsOne of the most important tools of lean manufacturing is standardized work. When starting a 5S program, the cleaning, organizing, and developing of sustainable practices is done so the elements of work can be standardized. In lean product development deployments, by developing and releasing design guidelines, we are in effect implementing standardized work for engineers. The principles of lean and flow production do not work well when everyone is allowed to choose the method or sequence in which to do the job quality suffers, and productivity drops.This reduces throughput and the carefully developed production system develops unanticipated bottlenecks. Standardized work is a detailed, documented and visual system by which associates develop and follow a series of predefined process steps. It should be used whenever the work requires complementary a series of tasks. Production workers, shipping departments, and warehousing teams all can benefit from implementing standardized work. References- 1. Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Techniques. Retrieved December 1, 2012, from Implementation of Lean Manufacturing Techniques eHow. com