Lead times

[Karl Hemilton]

I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.

Thanks in advance.

[Jim Stewart]

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.

I think Scott Adams has covered this in detail (:

Short-term, there's not much that can be done. Long
term, building the disciple and documentation system
for efficient design reuse will help. I was about to
make a joke about "firing all the slow engineers and
obstructionist managers", but I won't.

[Stan de SD]

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.

Yeah, bring in a consultant (hint, hint)... :O)

[Bill Buck]

My best advice is to apply Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. Visit - The Improvement Guru

-- Bill Buck

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.

Yeah, bring in a consultant (hint, hint)... :O)

[Thad Smith]

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are

^^^^^^ apparel?

Post by Karl Hemilton
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.

I think this is where a system analyst earns his keep. How about
forming a focus group of key players of each department that is affected
from sales through shipping. Brainstorm to determine what specifically
the market wants and how you can provide it. You might end up with a
premium fast track system along side the existing one for a while (or
forever).

Thad

[Mike Turco]

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

Yes, details would help a lot! The more, the better. First off, define
"appeal manufacturing" or clear up the typo.

What are the ten things that take the longest to complete?

Why not just increase the amount of inventory you have on hand?

Oh, Jesus. I just noticed that this is cross-posted all over the place to
technical groups. You ought to post this to the business groups, like
misc.business.moderated.

Mike

[Karl Hemilton]

Post by Mike Turco

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

Yes, details would help a lot! The more, the better. First off, define
"appeal manufacturing" or clear up the typo.
What are the ten things that take the longest to complete?
Why not just increase the amount of inventory you have on hand?
Oh, Jesus. I just noticed that this is cross-posted all over the place to
technical groups. You ought to post this to the business groups, like
misc.business.moderated.
Mike

Sorry guys. It should be apparel manufacturing.

[ba5416]

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

In order to reduce lead times you need to look at several things on the shop
floor and the process ahead of it that takes the orders.
Map out the entire process from the time the customer calls in the order to
the time the order leaves the building and arrives at the customers
location. Mark down every step along the way and assign a time value to each
step. Get your total amount of time

Follow an order around from start to finish. Map out how far each order
takes from raw material to finished product. Assign a value in feet for each
step. Get your total amount of travel

Map out the actual amount of time that is spent actually spent adding value
to the garment. That would be things like sewing, cutting, dying etc. The
difference between the total amount of time between order taking and
delivery and the amount of time actually spent changing the garment from raw
material is the non value added time. You will likely find out that the
amount of time actually spent on value added is no where near the amount of
total time spent. The non value added time is where you need to start
reducing.


In a lot of cases you will find low hanging fruit where you can take out
time. Orders that remain in someones inbox is one. Duplication of steps is
another one. Product that travels from one side of the building to the other
and back again is waste and increases lead time. See if you can move
equipment closer to one another.

I could go on forever but you get the idea.
Reduce waste of transportation
Reduce the amount of time it takes to change over a machine to run another
order.
Eliminate redundant steps
Etc.
Increasing inventory is not the answer. That increases your costs and leaves
you open for waste of product that suddenly no one wants to order or it gets
ruined.
Tools for reducing non value added steps or functions are the Kaizen
process, value stream mapping, autonomous maintenance, changeover reduction,
etc. At all times involve the production worker. They know where the waste
is.

I used to run the continuous improvement dept at the auto parts plant that I
worked at. It is amazing on the improvements that can be gained with a
minimum of time and money.

Use your brains before you open your wallet.

[Ian Bell]

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

There is no quick fix for this. It is primarily a cultural and
organisational thing. Tell me more about the current process and maybe i
can make some usful suggestions.

Ian

[Reg]

Post by Ian Bell

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

There is no quick fix for this. It is primarily a cultural and
organisational thing. Tell me more about the current process and maybe i
can make some usful suggestions.
Ian

HIre a consultant.... that really is the brunt of it. If you ever have
to ask "how do I reduce lead times" you know you are in trouble. There
are about a million and one reasons why you have slow lead times. And
a billion and one possible solutions that may or may not work.

If you cant afford a consultant you need to document your ENTIRE
process and all the sub-processes and pre-processes and look for
problems. you also need a really good knowledge of organisational
structure and process planning and operations research. .... Hire a
consultant (They are worth their weight in gold if you can find the
right one)

BTW i am not a consutant. I am a regular old mechanical engineer.

[Stan de SD]

Post by Reg

Post by Ian Bell

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

There is no quick fix for this. It is primarily a cultural and
organisational thing. Tell me more about the current process and maybe i
can make some usful suggestions.
Ian

HIre a consultant.... that really is the brunt of it. If you ever have
to ask "how do I reduce lead times" you know you are in trouble. There
are about a million and one reasons why you have slow lead times. And
a billion and one possible solutions that may or may not work.
If you cant afford a consultant you need to document your ENTIRE
process and all the sub-processes and pre-processes and look for
problems. you also need a really good knowledge of organisational
structure and process planning and operations research. .... Hire a
consultant (They are worth their weight in gold if you can find the
right one)
BTW i am not a consutant. I am a regular old mechanical engineer.

Just print up some business cards that say "consultant" on them. That's how
I got started. ;O)

[Geoffrey Swales]

"You are not along"

This happens in every company I deal with, customers order back-to-back and
expect you to 'magic' the product out of thin air.
I used to work for a company that manufactured large and expensive
instruments. Then one day I developed a small low-cost instrument and we had
to make some big changes to our production to meet the cost and quantity
issues. Here are a few techniques we used:

A good starting point may be to speak with your customer and explain the
situation; your problem is their problem. See if they will be prepared to
enter in to some kind of rolling order, say X number of units per month.
However they may not be too keen to expose themselves in this way.

Next try talking to your suppliers. Most of the time they are happy to enter
in to a 'call-off' situation where you will agree to take Y number of
components each month. Manufacturers don't mind this too much as it helps
with cash flow forecasts. They will tend to make and stock the whole (or
part) order, shipping the agreed amount each month. They are happy to reduce
or increase the volume shipped for any month so long as you take the total
order by the end of the agreed period (plus or minus a couple of months).

Finally, look at how you can speed things up in-house. Develop custom
test-rigs and/or software to speed up the pass-off testing. Build production
jigs to speed up any assembly (which will also improve quality and
repeatability). See about sub-contracting some time-consuming aspects of the
assembly phase (let someone else worry about lead-times) such as cable
assemblies, or firmware programming.

I hope this will help in some way!

Regards,

Geoffrey Swales
BioDigital Limited
'From proposal to product'
http://www.biodigital-ltd.com

Post by Stan de SD

Post by Reg

Post by Ian Bell

Post by Karl Hemilton
I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are
pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one
have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific
details if need.
Thanks in advance.

There is no quick fix for this. It is primarily a cultural and
organisational thing. Tell me more about the current process and

maybe

Post by Stan de SD
i

Post by Reg

Post by Ian Bell
can make some usful suggestions.
Ian

HIre a consultant.... that really is the brunt of it. If you ever have
to ask "how do I reduce lead times" you know you are in trouble. There
are about a million and one reasons why you have slow lead times. And
a billion and one possible solutions that may or may not work.
If you cant afford a consultant you need to document your ENTIRE
process and all the sub-processes and pre-processes and look for
problems. you also need a really good knowledge of organisational
structure and process planning and operations research. .... Hire a
consultant (They are worth their weight in gold if you can find the
right one)
BTW i am not a consutant. I am a regular old mechanical engineer.

Just print up some business cards that say "consultant" on them. That's how
I got started. ;O)