USSTC – FEL1 Study

Posted on October 23, 2013

USSTC was evaluating their current sites for company business continuity and projected growth or 5 to 7 percent for the next 10 years.

  • USSTC decided to hire an outside engineering consulting firm to develop a FEL1 study of current facilities. This study included a 30 percent cost estimate and milestone schedule. The study included a new facility which will also accommodate the companies need for business continuity and new process and packaging technology and automated material handling methods in existing sites.

Project Deliverables:

  • Complete facility layout including office and employee complex. On-site boiler/maintenance buildings.
  • Equipment list with estimated capital cost for process equipment, facility services and building construction.
  • Automation justification.
  • Milestone schedule
  • Site staffing estimate

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Productivity increased: A new facility and upgrades to existing facilities will allow USSTC to double production with a lower manpower staffing ratio than current levels.
  • Capacity increased: Double production by end of 10 year period.
  • Quality Improvement: The new manufacturing facility was designed to isolate dirty operations from clean critical operations. The new site will meet all FDA regulations.

 

OBCDC Greenhouse Revitalization

Posted on October 3, 2013

OBCDC was interested in having our team “conduct a needs assessment for the redevelopment of sustainable greenhouse production.”  The intent was to essentially develop a business case for the development of greenhouses in Old Brooklyn which would reflect the historical status of Old Brooklyn as the “greenhouse capital of the world”.

Reason for Project:

  • Discuss and plan for a sustainable local food production system that will nurture Old Brooklyn and the surrounding communities both economically and socially.
  • Visibly illustrate the linkages to other economic development activities underway in Old Brooklyn and the surrounding areas.

 Project Deliverables:

  • Documented the current-state systems which affect the feasibility of a new greenhouse food production system in Old Brooklyn using an Action Research Methodology.  This included a series of structured interviews with key stakeholders, the development of a stakeholder map and the creation of a causal loop map.
  • Completed a feedback session with all system stakeholders (26) using a modified “World Café” format http://www.theworldcafe.com/pdfs/cafetogo.pdf.

 Project Results/Benefits:

  • Clarified/Documented Strategic Plan: The project resulted in the development of a strategic plan with defined initiatives, committee assignments, goals and metrics to track success.
  • Moved the Project “Ball: Our part of the project led to a presentation to OBCDC Board; funding exploration by Entrepreneurs 4 Sustainability, NOFN and OBCDC; and the hiring of a “Greenhouse Nudger” by OBCDC. Also, Leadership Cleveland chose our project for next year’s focus project.
  • Publication: After the project was complete, an article of our project success was published by Kessels & Smit in November 2004.

American Red Cross- Strategic Planning

Posted on October 1, 2013

The Business and Industry Council for Emergency Planning (BEPA) had recently completed a SWOT analysis to evaluate its status as an on-going resource for the Greater Cleveland area.  At that time the Strategic Advisory Committee was at a cross-roads and concerned about the health of the initiative and the general lack of clarity concerning the short- and long-term strategy/plan.

Reason for Project:

  • Clarify understanding around the current state of the BEPA program.
  • Define a future-state vision of the BEPA program that would allow it to best meet its objectives.
  • Develop a short- and long-term action plan for implementing the future-state vision.

Project Deliverables:

  • Led the Strategic Advisory Committee through a current-state review considering industry trends and the SWOT analysis.
  • Brainstormed a compelling future-state vision for the BEPA program and led a discussion to prioritize characteristics.
  • Developed metrics for measuring the success of the new system(s).
  • Developed a plan (series of initiatives) for implementing the future-state system over the next year.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Clarified/Documented Strategic Plan: The project resulted in the development of a strategic plan with defined initiatives, committee assignments, goals and metrics to track success.

FFr – Product Launch Process Review

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FFr

Due to the large and growing number of new product projects in the “pipeline”, FFr wanted to find a way to improve their speed-to-market cycle for new products while maintaining their high customer satisfaction rating and prioritizing those products with the highest potential for large profit.

Reason for Project:

  • Reduce the time to launch a product once it has been approved for development.
  • Improve the ability of functional areas to work together on new product launch (NPL) projects.
  • Identify and fix “gaps” in the process that cause unnecessary delays in the NPL process.
  • Improve the tracking of projects in the “pipeline” so that the project status is clear to customer service and management.
  • Develop a better method for prioritizing product development projects so that all projects get completed in a timely manner and “best” meet FFr’s customer satisfaction and profit objectives.
  • Reduce the amount of obsolete material created due to the NPL initiatives.
  • Improve the link between the NPL process, the product bill-of-materials and the manufacturing operations.

Project Deliverables:

  • Led the executive team through a system redesign of their new product design process using the Action Research process (Discovery, Feedback, Collaborative Design).
  • Documented how the existing system operates through observations and interviews with the system stakeholders.
  • Identified the key drivers that impact the speed of designing/launching new products.
  • Developed a plan for implementing documented improvements over the next year.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Streamlined Process/Increased Speed to Market: The developed process significantly streamlined the product design/launch systems by eliminating some of the typical delay factors.
  • Increased Capacity:  The new process design enhanced FFr’s ability to generate new designs by removing system delays, rework and non-value added activities.

Motorcycle Manufacturing – Paint Shop Kaizen

Posted on September 25, 2013

A Midwest motorcycle manufacturer was experiencing inventory and throughput issues in the Inspection and Finesse Area of their Paint Shop.

 Reason for Project:

  • Epicenter was invited to participate in a Kaizen event to identify the root causes of the issues and develop sustainable corrective measures to eliminate the problems.

 Project Deliverables:

  • Over the course of 1 week, Epicenter actively participated in the Kaizen activities. Activities included: observation, interviewing of plant personnel, time study data collection and analysis, hands on “try-storming” and extensive team collaboration.
  • All information collected was summarized, analyzed and reviewed with the team.
  • A final report summarizing the findings and improvement recommendations from the Kaizen was generated.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Throughput Improvements: Improving work methods, accurately identifying defects (as soon as possible in the process) and reassigning/rebalancing work activities increased throughput per Finesse operator by 40%.
  • Labor Savings: These throughput improvements directly resulted in a labor savings of 1 operator per shift.
  • Quality Improvements: The importance of identifying and appropriately dealing with quality issues as soon as possible in the process was highlighted and procedures were implemented to facilitate and maintain this moving forward.
  • WIP Inventory Reduction: The quality improvements (parts stored are defect free and ready for Finesse) and throughput gains (parts can be finessed faster) allowed the client to operate with a significantly smaller WIP inventory without the fear of starving downstream operations.

Food Industry – Throughput Increase

Posted on September 2, 2013

Our Client was experiencing a high production loss due to various process issues. The current operations were profitable but seen as inefficient.  In addition, the product yields were limiting their ability to meet increasing requirements of the products.

Reason for Project:

  • Our Client decided to hire an outside engineering consulting firm to study the manufacturing facility during canning season. Observations of the entire process from truck unloading of raw materials through palletizing of cased products.

Project Deliverables:

  • A comprehensive list of process improvement ideas around the dicing lines; addition of in-line weight checking equipment; and oven and cooling process enhancements to increase throughput.
  • Also identified manpower reduction opportunities through staffing changes, installation of larger magazine feeders and the replacement of two low speed lines with one high speed canning line.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Productivity Improvements: Process improvement showed an increase of 12,790 cases (4%).
  • Labor Cost Reductions: Total proposed labor cost reduction would reduce annual labor cost by $600,000.
  • Throughput Enhancement: Increased production capacity within the same footprint.
  • Quality Improvement: Reduced can filling losses by $60,000 annually and empty can loss by $40,000 annually.

Energy Industry – Improvement Plans for Existing Facilities and Systems

Posted on August 1, 2013

A rapidly expanding confidential client required assistance with improving existing systems and developing new capacity.

Reason for Project:

  •  Efficiency gains through improvement of existing systems and creation of capacity through the design and construction of new facilities were required to keep pace with growing customer orders.

Project Deliverables:

  • Improvement Plans for Existing Facilities and Systems
  • Design of New Facilities – From conceptual block layouts to final detailed design.
  • Estimating of Material Handling Systems.
  • Simulation Modeling – Prove out design concepts.
  • Equipment Specifications – All aspects; development of performance specifications through the bid, evaluation and award process.
  • Vendor Equipment Development – Acted as Client representative to facilitate and monitor detailed design development, construction and testing of purchased equipment systems.
  • Construction Packages – Developed “material handling” packages and contributed to the detailed design of other disciplines.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Increased Capacity: Improvements and Expansions provided the Client significant leaps in processing capacity (enabling them to fulfill customer orders on schedule).
  • Innovative New Systems: Epicenter was the originator and/or developer of multiple ideas and systems that greatly improved and expanded the Client’s production capabilities.

Distribution – Facility Outbound Simulation

Posted on July 31, 2013

The client was in the process of rebuilding their distribution center operations. We modeled the entire outbound process from the workstations for picking, kitting, and auditing to the dock doors.  At the time, they wanted to use simulation modeling techniques to evaluate and fine-tune their base outbound system conceptual design. This would enable them to make system changes, as required, to best meet their short- and long-term operational needs.

Reason for Project:

  • After their previous distribution center was destroyed by a tornado, they were redesigning a completely new facility and wanted to validate the conceptual design.
  • Discover any potential bottlenecks with the proposed system.
  • Determine the labor requirements for the outbound processing stations.

Project Deliverables:

  • Development of an accurate computer simulation model of their outbound operations process. The model has variable input parameters that can be changed by the client via Excel input spreadsheet.
  • Completion of a base analysis to understand potential bottlenecks and labor requirements

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Layout Validation: Evaluated the layout and determined potential bottlenecks (quantified benefits).
  • Labor Evaluation: Simulation model was able to flush out a data/design defect early on where the data wasn’t accounting for almost one-third of total labor in one section.
  • Tool Development: Developed a tool for the client to use to run many different scenarios/experiments to help them determine equipment and production needs and limitations.

 

Food Industry – Sanitation Process Study

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The client is a multinational food manufacturing company.  Due to production demand increases at their Ohio canning facility, the staffing had shifted from third shift (sanitation) to first and second shifts (production).  One of their canning lines was at capacity.

Reason for Project:

  • The client needed to reduce the sanitation time on the lines to increase available production time and increase their capacity.

Project Deliverables:

  • Evaluated the current Standard Operating Procedures for Sanitation Operations and prepared a report comparing the SOPs to what operators were actually doing.
  • Compiled a list of recommendations to reduce cleaning times including: potential CIP locations, changes in the order of operations to increase efficiency, and best practices to reduce unnecessary additional cleaning.
  • Identified and reported personnel issues that contributed to long cleaning times.
  • Updated SOPs with changes as approved by the client.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Productivity increased: Estimated sanitation cycle time reduction of 50%.
  • Capacity increased: Estimated increasing production hours from 18 to 23 each day for each production line.
  • Cost Reduction: By increasing production hours (income) and reducing downtime for cleaning (cost), the client is able to increase saleable goods production without increasing fixed overhead costs.

Food Industry – FEL1 Study

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Our Client was evaluating a new site for company business continuity and projected growth of 5-7% for the next 10 years.

Reason for Project:

  • Our Client decided to hire an outside engineering consulting firm to develop a FEL1 study of a new facility. This study included a 30% cost estimate and milestone schedule. The new facility would also accommodate new process and packaging technology and automated material handling methods.

Project Deliverables:

  • Complete facility layout including office and employee complex. On-site boiler/maintenance buildings.
  • Equipment list with estimated capital cost for process equipment and facility services and building construction. Automation justification.
  • Milestone schedule.
  • Site staffing estimate.

Project Results/Benefits:

  • Productivity increased: The new facility would allow the company to double production with a lower manpower staffing ratio than current plants.
  • Capacity increased: Double production by end of ten year period.
  • Quality Improvement: The new manufacturing facility was designed to isolate dirty operation from clean critical operations. The new site would meet all FDA regulations.