At Huco, acceptance of the potential of
Lead times have fallen from more than
minutes, then to ten. Now a changeover
lean came early, says Noone “We set up
four weeks to less than two days. Quality
takes 58 seconds, which means we can
a model of good practice in one area of
levels have risen dramatically and on-time,
manufacture in any batch size we want.”
our Hertford plant, establishing a cellular
in full delivery performance is now higher
approach to manufacturing, removing
than 97 percent. In some product lines
excess inventory and streamlining
customers can now order in any quantity
operations. The advantages of the new
they want, with guaranteed delivery within
approach were so obvious to everyone
three days.
in the plant that there was immediate
appetite to adopt it elsewhere.”
This kind of performance matters. If
customers have the confidence that they
Today, the company’s manufacturing
can get the products they need, when
operations have been transformed. It has
they need them and at the right quality,
established dedicated production cells
they can hold smaller inventories without
for each product group. The majority of
fear of downtime due to missing parts.
products flow through manufacturing
That means less cost, less risk and greater
processes one by one, rather than in
responsiveness in their operations.
batches. Production teams run those
operations using standardised processes,
with team leaders trained in problem
solving and improvement techniques.
Management boards at each cell record
problems and improvement opportunities,
and the company uses Pareto analysis to
focus its on-going improvement efforts on
the most important issues first.
The new flexibility and responsiveness
has called for changes right across
the organisation, as sales and order
management processes have had to adapt
to cope with "a far higher number of
transactions."
The company has changed its relationships
with suppliers too, in order to streamline
upstream processes as well as internal
ones. Take heat treatment for example. In
the past, parts might have spent a week or
more at an external supplier receiving heat
treatment, now, says Noone, the supplier
Customers have seized that opportunity,
will collect a batch of parts at 8.30am and
says Noone, changing their purchasing
return them 24 hours later.
habits to order smaller quantities more
regularly. But that change in purchasing
behaviour makes operational flexibility
even more important. “We have done a
lot of work to reduce changeover times
between product lines,” he explains. “On
our bellows coupling line, for example, it
For Huco’s customers, the impact of the
used to take 30 minutes to switch between
change has been highly significant too.
product types. We reduced that to 15
Despite the huge strides Huco has already
made, there is still more to do, "An outsider
looking at our operations might assume
we are 99 percent of the way there," says
Noone. "But we think we're only 30 or 40
percent into the journey."
Issue 20 PECM
105