A few weeks ago, a company director confided: “I’m losing business opportunities by turning down customers from other countries because I don’t have enough capacity to fulfil their orders. But what can I do?” 🤔 I was lucky enough to be given an opportunity to visit one of South America’s manufacturers for steel drums (Did I tell you that visiting companies is a weird hobby of mine? It feeds my craving for earning, my professional experience and I always try to give something in return for any impromptu visit). 🧐
The observation phase
We only had a few hours available on a Friday afternoon before the end of shift, so I suggested that after the presentation of the company, we go directly to the shopfloor to observe what was going on. This is a high-volume business, low margins, manual processes business without much cash for investment. So, what do you do?
You know your business better than no one, but sometimes you are so used to seeing things the way they are currently done, it’s very difficult for you to bring in fresh perspectives to solve the issue. Also, when you have little resources to spare, you want to focus them on areas that will bring significant improvement.
Add to that that you and your teams know the business but may not be trained in lean manufacturing methodologies or problem-solving.
As we walked the manufacturing process, I noticed that one station was much slower than others and required a lot of manpower: 3 people were needed to remove the oil on the products before painting. Ideally, that process would need to be eliminated or reduced as much as possible. And that requires time and data analysis, which we didn’t have then.
What could I do in the limited time available?
Well, as we stood there, it became clear that multiple workers were moving parts multiple times between the final process and expedition. By removing the extra handling and packaging the products directly at the end of the line, we could free up one worker. So, I suggested some cheap process experimentations to eliminate intermediate steps. Then, there was some rework of components after painting which is very labour intensive. The reason for the paint defects seemed to be paint accumulation on the nozzles, so we considered some simple focused problem-solving around that, and that would free up another worker.
None of these actions would increase capacity, they would reduce cost, however, by reducing waste and freeing up resources, the factory could create another cleaning station to remove the bottleneck. I estimated that we would be increasing capacity by 20%.
We were still missing a person for the second cleaning process station though. There was another opportunity in the paint booth where currently a person was handling all products to avoid scratches caused by the conveyor. They already had an ongoing improvement action for this and we talked about how they could completely remove the handling here for all product types. Third person? Check! ✔️
👉 After 3 hours spent together, we came away with a simple action plan to improve capacity with little investment (only the manufacture of a simple cleaning station), a reduction of waste and costs on other process steps, and the subsequent reallocation of existing workers.
I enjoyed this opportunity so much and was able to provide value in exchange at the same time. Would that solve all their problems? Of course not! Once you remove a bottleneck, guess what happens? Another surfaces! That’s why continuous improvement is so vital to your business.
However, following my visit, they now have a starting point! And I have a standing invitation to come again! 😊