Lean in High Mix Low Volume Manufacturing
Barnes Aerospace is a build-to-print manufacturer of precision aircraft components specializes in super plastic forming, machining and welding. Barnes Aerospace needed to improve profitability by reducing operating costs and increasing sales. Key areas for improvement were were inventory, space and productivity. Manufacturing lead-time was the driver for acquiring new business. The high mix, low volume business made the application of lean manufacturing challenging.
Barnes engaged the Gemba consulting team from Kaizen Institute. The project began with a kaizen strategic planning session, education in lean principles for leadership and staff, development of Value Stream Maps that identified the key products and processes for improvement. A series of Gemba Kaizen workshops were conducted, focusing on SMED and set-up reduction, 5S, flow production, and quality improvement.
As value streams were redesigned and lead-times were reduced, production and purchasing lead-time offsets were adjusted in the master schedule. Kaizen focused on production processes lead-times reduction. Barnes established a pull system throughout multiple shared resources in production. Internal continuous improvement personnel were identified and trained in Just-in-Time, SMED, Office Kaizen and other tools.
Results
As a result of the lean transformation and the establishment of an internal Continuous Improvement team, Barnes Aerospace has realized the following savings over a 16-month period:
- Space savings from 169,000 ft2 to 56,000 ft2
- Improved productivity by 24%
- Increased inventory turns from 3.8 to 5.5
- Reduced manufacturing lead-time by 61%
- Increased sales
- Annual return on investment for Lean consulting greater than 5 to 1
Testimonial
"When we were getting started with kaizen, we weren't quite sure how the kaizen concepts that came out of mass production could apply to us. Our consultants helped us adapt the kaizen tools to fit our high mix, low volume business. As a result, we have seen our inventory, lead-time, scrap cost, and floor space all cut by more than 50% over the last year and a half."
Terry Bates
Operations Manager
Barnes Aerospace