Due to a consistent increase in demand and customer expectations, Index's on-time delivery had suffered resulting in high stress levels, an over reliance on expedited freight and constant fire-fighting. Index found itself consumed with the challenge of meeting customer demand rather than focussing on operational improvements. After looking into all options, management decided to add lean techniques and methods to improve delivery, reduce material shortages and make workflow consistent. Infor's Throughput Improvement PSO Group advised the company on how to adopt a lean approach for its specific processes and provided Infor's VISUAL Easy Lean Scheduling & Fast Track implementation.
Within four months of implementing the Infor VISUAL Easy Lean solution, delivery rates had soared and material shortages had disappeared due to increased visibility, co-ordination and prioritisation.
"Our flow is so balanced that we don't expedite material anymore" boasted Greg Colburn, Index Sensors' Manager. "The change was so quick and dramatic that one of our larger suppliers made a special trip to see us because suddenly we had stopped our constant expediting and emergency shipments. They thought we had engaged another supplier even though we were buying as much or more from them as we ever had."
Infor VISUAL Easy Lean introduced a system to pull materials through the production area to improve on-time performance and productivity as the company engaged in both make-to-stock and make-to-order operations. It also allowed the company to co-ordinate purchasing within the manufacturing environment to slash material and component shortages.
"Our customers are very happy with our performance improvement" Colburn reports. "One of our larger customers constantly changed delivery requirements inside our frozen zone. Our delivery performance was suffering. But with the Easy Lean approach, we haven't missed an expedited delivery date in three months. Once the fire fighting and expediting goes away, it's amazing what we can get done. Now it's all hands on deck for improvements."
The Infor VISUAL Easy Lean software supports lean manufacturing, delivering rapid results by incorporating pull-oriented scheduling techniques to enable better decision making on releasing inventory at optimal times. It automatically creates work orders when quantities dip below replenishment levels and provides detailed reports and performance measurements . It is very powerful software.
