Kaizen forges efficiency

Whether or not they are planned, forces inside and outside the organization can sometimes impact your workforce and lead to nonvalue-added processes. Growth spurts, major technology implementations, or even small supply-chain disruptions can present more issues than expected.

At Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence in North Kingstown, we continuously review supply-chain efficiencies as new products are introduced to the market. Our company manufactures a wide range of precision metrology solutions for the collection, analysis and active use of measurement data in industrial sectors such as aerospace, automotive, power generation and medical.

n An emphasis on lean. Our team has long taken a “lean” approach to streamlining our operational procedures. Hexagon reached out to the Polaris Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Rhode Island to create and deploy a two-day Kaizen and Continuous Improvement workshop to put changes into motion. This event was designed to tackle three problematic areas leveraging teams of internal employees and our local suppliers. Polaris MEP offers services and workshops to help manufacturers keep their improvement programs fresh and exciting.

These types of collaborative ventures help to ensure our partners have strong and thriving businesses, setting the table for long-term success for everyone.

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n Our projects. The first Kaizen project we focused on was the storage and organization of commodity goods, mostly consumables such as paper, chemicals and cleaning products used throughout the plant. The goal was to improve the layout, organization and ordering process. We teamed with our supplier, making them responsible for maintaining the specified inventory of goods, thus creating a “supplier-owned” process.

Next, we focused on improving the storage space and simplifying the location process of our service department artifacts. These various items are often dispatched into the field and used to calibrate our coordinate measuring machines.

Finally, our team wanted to formalize a process for the receipt and routing of noninventory items arriving at the facility, which were sometimes delayed or not delivered.

n Putting Kaizen to work. During the training offered by Polaris, our employees and suppliers were exposed to formal Kaizen and 5S (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) concepts. In short, “Kaizen” is a Japanese business philosophy focused on continuous improvement of working practices and personal efficiencies based on the 5S strategy. With these new tools in hand, several of our departments teamed up with the local suppliers to begin tackling these projects. Ultimately, solutions were found for all three projects by applying the Kaizen principles.

The hands-on Kaizen workshops offered by Polaris resulted in high-value collaboration, which ultimately improved the given business processes. Moreover, the problem-solvers got to know each other better while using their strengths to find sustainable solutions. In a workshop such as this, the employee-vendor relationship is given a very unique opportunity to concentrate on specific problems and coordinate actions to achieve maximum efficiency. •

Steve Ilmrud is vice president of operations, Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence NA.

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