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About Joe D. Buys
Expertise
I can answer questions about Lean initiatives both on the plant floor or in the office. Lean is about How to eliminate waste in any process. How to build and maintain teams used in Kaizen or rapid improvement events.

Experience
Administrative Director of the National Association of Job Shops and Small Manufacturers. This is an organization devoted to implementing Lean in Manufacturing and Admin areas of businesses across the nation. I have co-authored or edited numerous books on Lean.

Organizations
NAJS

Publications
Books: FINDING PROFIT; the Lean Manufacturing journey to profit for the small job Shop ...and BACK STREET LEAN; Solutions for the Small Manufacturer

Education/Credentials
General Motors Synchronist Manufacturing program

You are here: Experts > Industry > Plant Automation > Manufacturing > cycle time reduction.

Manufacturing - cycle time reduction.

Expert: Joe D. Buys - 10/17/2009

Question
I'm from plastic injection mould manufacture line. In fact it is very competitive in the market right now, but my working company is very difficult to meet the target/requirement especially lead time.
(lead time: small size:20 days, medium:35 days and large:45 days#
Remark:small size mould weight:1~3 tons, medium:3~5 tons and large:5~12 tons.
company has design CAD/CAM section, CNC machining section EDM machining section and conventional machining section, finishing which polishing + fitting.
CAD/CAM section:
CAD 2D - 3 persons, software:AutoCad 2000. 3D - 3 persons, software: Pro-E wildfire 2.
CAM - 4 persons, software: Cimatron E8.
CNC sections: 8 persons, 5 machines and running 2 shifts.
EDM sections: 3 persons, 3 machines and run 2 shift sometimes.
conventional section: 8 persons, 8 machines.
Fitting - around 12 persons.
polishing - around 5 persons.
My doubts.
1)How to meet the lead time target, basically is how reduce the cycle time at each section?
2)Any advices, experiences and ideas would like to share?
3)Any good and successful examples for us to benchmark?
4)Shall company to increase number of manpower[which section] and machines?
5)Any new and high technologies machines, equipments would like to introduce?
6)Any good and efficient way to run the operation in order all staffs can be managed?
7)Beside those doubts above, any other areas that we need to focus or any other improvements that we can do? Please give advices as much as possible.

Thank you very much.

Answer
Dear tc,

I'm sorry for the delay in responding to your question. I was out of the country and just got back. It's impossible for me to give you specific advice about your set-up without knowing a great deal more about your facility, it's products and clients. However, anytime that lead time is a concern, it leads me to believe that you have significant waste in your processes. I would strongly suggest that you find a consultant in your area that has expertise in Lean Manufacturing. They should be able to help you develop Value Stream maps of your processes to identify any of the 7 deadly wastes of non value-added activities including Overproduction, waiting, excessive transport, motion, inventory, overprocessing and defects. If you are not familiar with the Lean philosophy go to the website www.theleanstore.com for some excellent resources on this topic. They even have a self-assessment that you can use to evaluate your own processes.

Good Luck
Joe D. Buys
Partner
Crystal Clear Concepts
www.ccconcepts.com

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