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Finnish healthcare technology company
Lean Turnaround of the Assembly Plant
Customer:
Medical device manufacturer
Background:
The company's production and workforce have grown rapidly, and responding to the increased demand is challenging. Significant new customer relationships have been formed, and there is a desire to maintain delivery reliability related to these. At the same time, the quality level of production should be raised to meet the demands of large customers.
Problem:
The production capacity is insufficient, and delivery schedules are chronically delayed. There have been several quality issues in production, which have had significant cost implications. There are often shortages in the availability of production materials. The total value of capital tied to production and internal logistics is high. Quality problems with production equipment complicate daily production planning. The production operation is heavily batch-based, and the lead time is about two weeks.
Objective:
Increase production capacity by +25% and permanently resolve quality issues. Reduce the value of tied-up capital by -50%.
Implementation:
The overall process of the factory (logistics, production, packaging, and shipping operations) was described using value stream mapping. Based on the mapping, a solution was reached in which the entire factory layout and operating model were renewed according to flow thinking. An extension system was built for internal logistics following the Kanban model. Lean daily management was implemented to manage production, focusing on the systematic resolution of quality issues.
Result:
The lead time for assembly decreased from two weeks to about one hour. At the same time, the amount of tied-up capital decreased to a fraction of the original. The change in lead time and daily management significantly affected the quality level, and the costs of production quality dropped by over 90%. The new factory layout freed up over 50% of the floor space, and the freed space could be utilized, for example, to build a new office for production management close to production. Cleanroom arrangements were also facilitated by new space solutions. The total capacity of the factory increased by about 40% with the same workforce.
The development team won the Lean Act of the Year award presented by the Finnish Lean Association for their development work.
