Success Stories
Brockway-Smith company officials found themselves behind in their production schedule; they recognized the company needed the assistance of the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership (Maine MEP).
"The company had a challenge meeting the demands of their customers," said Maine MEP project manager Larry Robinson. "But company officials knew they were also limited by square footage. Our goal was to increase production while utilizing the same manufacturing space. A real challenge!"
In business for more than 115 years, Brockway-Smith operates under the name BROSCO. Founded by Louis Brockway and Fred Smith in 1890, the company distributes doors, windows, and specialty millwork, as well as columns, mantels, moldings, posts and stairs through a network of dealers in New England and New York. The company has four manufacturing and distribution centers in New England, the smallest facility being in Portland, Maine with over 100 employees. Its customers include architects, building materials dealers, as well as contractors. Click here to read more.
Sappi Fine Paper’s managing director, John Martis decided he wanted to improve the mill's service and competitiveness.
Sappi Fine Paper wanted to improve its ability to meet on-time delivery requirements by utilizing Time Wise Principle of Lean. "I knew Sappi could improve service by using Lean Manufacturing without having to invest any capital," Martis said.
For Martis, the proof was in the numbers. "As a result of the assistance provided by Maine MEP, the mill has experienced significant improvements in set up reduction times for one coater and for the embossers," he said.
"Additionally, from the perspective of our employees’ safety, these projects have also had a positive impact," Martis said. Click here to read more.
Windham Millwork a manufacturer of custom cabinetry, is now in the process of initiating Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing through the plant. "The results have already been rewarding," said Bruce Pulkkinen, the president and CEO of the Windham-based company. "It’s amazing how the lean program has eliminated waste and freed up space which can be utilized for new product lines."
Pulkkinen said it has worked and the results may best be found in the numbers. "Product throughput time has been reduced from 10 days to 4 days," he said, "while labor per cabinet has been reduced by at least 20 percent."
"Lean Manufacturing introduced by the Maine MEP has made us even more quality conscious," he said. "We do a lot more inspection of our own work and we are looking to save dollars in the production process without reducing employment. In fact our goal from the beginning was to free up space to allow us to increase employment and sales volume."
Click here to read more.
Jøtul’s worldwide reputation for quality workmanship has made the Portland, Maine company a huge success, with more than 300,000 stoves, inserts and fireplaces shipped each year from that location.
However, proper space utilization, quality and on-time delivery has been high on the company’s list of concerns. "We emphasize changes to the process that will reduce the needed production area space and warehouse storage space while utilizing standardized production processes, reducing handling of production components and increasing flexibility in meeting customers’ demands," said Shawn Malloy, vice president of engineering and manufacturing.
In order to address those concerns, Jøtul’s management decided to become officially involved in Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing. "We have always believed in Lean Manufacturing," Malloy said, "but we wanted to initiate a formal Lean implementation program."
Jøtul's Portland facility has seen an increase in sales per employee, which is increasing the margin on each stove sold and enabling the company to minimize any increase in stove prices. "This should increase our market share and lead to an increase in the number of employees needed at Jøtul in the coming years," Malloy said. Click here to read more.
AM Wood Design Inc. is always looking for additional customers for their products. However, Richard Casey, owner of the Bingham manufacturing company, needed to address the issue of production flow. "We were constantly fighting to get zero inventory and on-time production, but we just couldn’t seem to get there," Casey said.
Maine MEP facilitated a series of Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing sessions to help address the challenge. Now the company produces just enough finished products to fill a palette. The workers are kept busy at all times, there is no down time waiting for parts to be completed, inventory has been reduced and the company is zeroing in on on-time production.
"Our quality is way up, our on-time delivery numbers are up, our through-put time has decreased and shipment cycle times have decreased by 21.4 percent, from 7 days to 5.5 days," said Casey. Click here to read more.
CedarWorks Playsets, manufacturer of swing sets, playsets and cedar fencing, has a philosophy of always looking for better ways to do things while constantly improving customer service and the quality of their products.
"I got the impression that Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing would fit right into our culture," said Kirby Kramer, vice president of finance and operations.
"We now find ourselves looking critically at all our business activities," Kramer said, "and applying Lean Manufacturing thinking as we work to implement additional improvements in our operations and in the playsets we sell all over the world."
Working with MEP’s project managers, the issue concerning the supply of bad wood was resolved. This increased the first-pass yield of the wood grading process by about 20 percent. Improvement in the grading area reduced personnel travel by 70 percent, which is equal to a reduction of 2.7 miles per day. "That translates to 45 minutes a day in savings," Kramer pointed out. "We also increased our usable space in that area by 580 square feet." Click here to read more.
Superior Concrete Co. of Auburn, manufacturer of precast concrete products, decided to learn more about Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing.
Peter Allen, production supervisor of the Auburn division, is convinced that Lean Manufacturing is important to his company. Incorporating Lean Manufacturing is the company’s latest effort to empower their employees to do the best jobs possible.
"As a result of the Lean Manufacturing we have experienced savings of approximately $250,000," said Allen. "We feel this is excellent considering we have only been doing Lean for 18 months."
"We look forward to working with the Maine MEP in the future as we continue through this process," Allen said. "Our company is committed to the Lean Manufacturing and our Lean journey will never end. Click here to read more.
Designs by Lucinda looked to Maine MEP to eliminate a production bottleneck that has dramatically increased the company’s business.
The Portland, Maine-based business is dedicated to creating affordable jewelry of the highest quality to bring financial help and awareness to non-profit organizations. Unfortunately, a production bottleneck was created during the final phase as the coating used to produce a glossy finish caused bubbles to form.
"Clearing our production bottleneck has allowed us to reduce our finishing time from 4.5 days to 1.5 days," said Mike Reynolds, general manager of the jewelry manufacturer. "Best of all, the savings we realized from that change were invested into increasing our sales team, which has yielded a 14 percent increase in sales for 2004."
"The Maine MEP project managers knew that time was definitely a factor in addressing the production bottleneck and took that into consideration when initiating Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing," said Reynolds.
"Though we are a privately held business and do not discuss numbers, I can say that MEP has played a role in dramatically increasing our production capacity, and this has lead to significant expansion of the company," he added.
Click here to read more.
Flotation Technologies, Inc. is a world leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of deepwater buoyancy systems using high-strength Flotec™ syntactic foam and polyurethane elastomer products and provides products for the offshore oil, oceanographic, seismic and defense markets.
"There are only five or six companies in the world that do what we do," said Tim Cook, Flotation Technologies’ president. "And we are the oldest continuously operating company. But we have large competitors and it is difficult to compete on a cost basis alone."
Maine MEP’s assessment process showed Flotation Technologies’ number one problem was throughput in the front office. "I had a very elaborate system of getting quotes out the door," Cook said, "but being busy isn’t the same thing as productive. I knew I needed to embrace the Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing approach in my front office because I had way too many redundancies and I had a belt-and-suspenders approach."
As a result of implementing Lean Manufacturing the company now builds quotations in the computer, rather than having people walk paper from desk to another, or to the other end of the office to get a signature. "We are putting out twice the number of quotes in the same amount of time," Cook said. "It has made a huge difference."
More importantly Time Wise Value Stream Management System mapping session outcomes showed a 30 percent reduction in time for the engineering-to-sales processing cycle at Flotation Technologies.
"All of these positive outcomes will allow Flotation Technologies to better respond to its customer needs in a very competitive global market and to withstand offshore competition over the next several years," said Cook.
Click here to read more.
New England Castings, based in Hiram, Maine, recently agreed to provide components and sub-assemblies to a railroad hardware manufacturer that provides products for a major city subway system. The company specializes in fractional pound castings, using only environmentally friendly, water-based slurries in the production of shells.
"If it wasn’t for the Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing training received from the project managers at Maine MEP I probably would not have been in a position to accept the new orders," said Walter Butler, president and owner. "In addition, because of MEP’s help, I now have a good chance to become a substantial supplier for a northeastern state’s project to retrofit all its rail cars."
The value of Butler’s purchase orders for the subway system job is in excess of $500,000 over a 12-month period.
Needing to expand their facility from 3,000 square feet to 9,000 square feet Butler decided it was best to learn about Time Wise Principles of Lean Manufacturing.
"Each of our employees took part in the training and still remain enthusiastic about what they learned," said Butler. "In fact, my employees have initiated activities on their own to further streamline our process."
The finishing area focused on reducing walking distance by 40 percent, reducing equipment setup time by 15 percent and gaining 50 percent of the space back so it could be used for manufacturing processes.
"The upshot of all this," Butler said, "was that I found that saving all that space allowed me to delay my building addition. Best of all, saving all that time allowed me to consider bidding on the New York and Connecticut jobs because I knew we now could deliver the goods on time."
Another big step is that New England Castings has grown from 13 to 32 employees. Click here to read more.
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