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- Fast Tracking Lean
Enterprise Minnesota Magazine - December 2011
HELPING MANUFACTURERS GROW PROFITABLY
Fast Tracking Lean
Custom manufacturer Atscott Manufacturing Company dives headfirst into myriad lean training efforts.
John Norris, president of Atscott Manufacturing Company
Atscott Manufacturing Company is boosting productivity and expanding its target market thanks to a new culture of continuous training. In the past 12 months alone, the turnkey machining and fabricating firm has worked with Enterprise Minnesota to complete rounds of Training Within Industry, Value Stream Mapping, and leadership development training while also pursuing an upgraded ISO certification. Its goal is to put the company on a fast track toward becoming a lean enterprise, from the front office to the factory floor.
Atscott first discovered the benefits of lean after moving from a batch system to a one-piece flow system for a hotmelt glue gun it manufactures for 3M. For three months the company worked with 3M black belt lean specialists to convert product assembly to continuous one-piece flow; it even added a kanban system to keep inventory low. In doing so, Atscott saved 35 percent on assembly costs, inspiring company president John Norris to transform the rest of the business into a well-oiled lean machine.
“We saw some tremendous opportunities in that [one assembly] area,” Norris says. “This was done in a little corner of our factory, and we thought it would be nice to see if we couldn’t get this done company-wide.”
Atscott began its journey to efficiency with Training Within Industry (TWI) to educate workers on the principles and benefits of lean. The program is divided into four segments—job instruction, job relations, job methods, and job safety. Together the program teaches how to develop, implement, and standardize lean processes; how to communicate effectively among employees with varying communication styles; and how to pinpoint and eliminate potentials for injury on the job.
“TWI training makes people aware that things can be done differently and aware of issues that currently exist,” observes Norris. “It gets a lot of things on the table in a quick way.”
Next, a handful of Atscott employees completed a Value Stream Mapping session to tackle front-office tasks. Before, each person was assigned a specific job such as purchasing, expediting, entering orders, or customer service. The process made it a challenge to keep everyone up to date on each customer’s needs, Norris says, resulting in frequent miscommunication and duplication of work.
Instead, Atscott adopted a work cell approach, assigning each customer service person a group of customers it assists from beginning to end. It is also working on a new scheduling format that will eliminate the need for personal expediting by customer service staff, an initiative that Norris estimates could save $250,000.
Most recently, the company brought together eight office employees to complete leadership development training. It introduces four different types of personalities, analyzes the personality type of each participant, and teaches employees how to modify their own behavior to work more effectively with different personality types.
“You’re opening yourself up to what kind of person you are, how you deal with things. So there was quite a bit of hesitancy,” Norris recalls. “But through the four sessions that we had ... we saw that this was something positive that allowed us to work better with people with different styles.”
Now, Atscott is in the midst of an ISO upgrade to AS9100, a certification that will allow the company to gain additional business in the aerospace industry. “One of the first things [potential aerospace customers] usually ask is whether you are AS9100 certified, and if you’re not, then you get set aside,” Norris explains.
He estimates the certification could help Atscott secure enough new customers to grow its percentage of aerospace work to 20 percent, up from its current 10 percent.
©2011, Enterprise Minnesota. All rights reserved.Reproduction encouraged after obtaining permission from EnterpriseMinnesota. Additional Magazines and reprints available for purchase.
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