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.

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.

Our Client was expanding their paint line and required facility planning for warehouse design, workstation layout, and capacity analysis.

Reason for Project:

• An outside engineering consulting group was contracted to provide the details and drawings for the expansion for the new paint line system and looked to Epicenter to identify and quantify problems to enable areas of improvement using IE tools.

Project Deliverables:

• Validate the existing future state design.
  • Identify any critical flaws with the current layout and approach.
  • Generate detailed workstation layouts.
  • Determine HMI screen contents and operator interactions.
• Establish plan for the storage and flow of raw materials.
  • Raw materials warehouse size, layout and storage type.
  • Flow of materials from warehouse to the line.
  • Validate FG storage area footprint.
• Provide recommendations to the Client that can be implemented immediately.

Project Results/Benefits:

• Workstation Layout: Redesigned layouts and flow between departments for high level capacities through 2017. Employed ergonomic principles to manage safe working conditions.
• Warehousing Improvement: Design of raw material and finished goods storage, utilizing annual capacity levels from 2013 to 2017.
• Achievement of Capacity: Upon correcting the identified problems the system would be capable of operating to the designed capacity.

Our Client was evaluating several new locations for a new maintenance shop complex. The new complex would allow them to have machine shop and heavy craft personnel under one roof. Also, the new complex would reduce the risk of the worker by moving out of the “HOT” zone of the plant.

Reason for Project:

• Our Client decided to hire an outside engineering consulting firm to study the work flow patterns of both the machine shop and heavy trades. The new facility will also allow trades to share equipment and reduce space requirements in the new shop.

Project Deliverables:

• Put together process flow charts for the top six operations performed by both trades, identifying tools used during these process steps.
• Flow intensive diagram showing the paths of each of the top six operations performed by the trades in the new maintenance shop complex. The diagram shows how often paths crossed and over all flow of materials through the shop.

Project Results/Benefits:

• Productivity increased: Reduced the walking distance required to perform top six operations.
• Cost Reductions: Reduction of the overall square footage required in the new maintenance shop complex verses current square footage used at the facility site.
• Quality Improvement: The locations of the dirty operation were moved away from clean critical operations.