When Carolina Cabinet Company in Black Creek implemented lean manufacturing in their machining department, they experienced a 75 percent reduction in overtime. When they made lean improvements to a special product line rollout, they immediately reduced labor requirements by 25 percent and doubled output.
“The magnitude of the improvement was surprising,” said Mike Jones, Sales Manager. “That’s why all the guys embraced it.”
Carolina Cabinet embarked on lean manufacturing in January when 10 employees, including all shop floor supervisors and key non-manufacturing department heads, attended Lean 100 at Wilson Technical Community College (WTCC). The class was conducted by IES instructors John Schmitzer and Michelle Cooper. They followed up with a three-day, hands-on value stream mapping session that Cooper conducted at the plant.
“Value stream mapping gave us a current snapshot of the process and an idea of what we could accomplish if we implemented some of the ideas we generated,” said Gary Aycock, Production Manager.
Carolina Cabinet worked with George Miller, Business and Industry Training Coordinator at Wilson Tech, to arrange funding for the initial training through the Focused Industrial Training (FIT) program. Wilson Tech contracted with IES to provide the training. IES specialist David Harrawood later assisted Carolina Cabinet in securing an Incumbent Workforce Development Grant for the company that helped fund additional training.
Carolina Cabinet manufactures custom commercial display cabinets and employs 110 people. Since the initial training programs, they have conducted kaizen events in several manufacturing areas. Kaizen events are intensive, five-day sessions in which process improvements are identified and implemented.
The first kaizen event was conducted in March 2005 in the machining department where cabinet components are cut and milled. The department worked a steady flow of overtime from April through December, 2004, just to keep up with the workload.
In the kaizen event, IES lean specialist Jim Kurian helped Carolina Cabinet employees map the machining process, identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks, and plan process improvements. They streamlined the process, got rid of unnecessary equipment, reduced the size of other machines, and freed up more than 2,100 feet of production space. They moved production stations closer together, allowing some operators to perform multiple processes, and reduced cue and cushion times that kept products in the machining area longer than necessary.
“With the streamlined process we were able to run products through smoother and faster, in smaller batches,” said Aycock. “We did time studies and identified one product that took two days to move through machining before the change. The time was cut to four and a half hours. And that’s not exaggerated. It’s documented with before and after data.”
“When we closed the books in June, we had done more work in that area compared to the same quarter last year, with only three weeks of overtime,” Jones said.
The next kaizen event was conducted for a special product line rollout that challenged the company’s production capacity. “We were kind of scratching our heads trying to figure out how we could do it all,” said Aycock.
IES lean specialist Schmitzer conducted the event just before a scheduled ramp up in production. He and Carolina Cabinet employees analyzed the existing process, conducted time studies and made improvements to optimize the process.
The result was a 30 percent reduction in manufacturing space requirements, a 25 percent reduction in labor requirements, and a production increase from 10 to 25 units per week. As a bonus, by reducing the space requirements, they were able to move the operation from a leased building to a company-owned plant.
Even though labor requirements were reduced on the product line, no one lost their job because of the efficiency improvements. “We made a commitment that no one would lose their job,” said Jones. “We’ve actually hired people as a result of this process.”
Carolina Cabinet has had a 10 percent growth in sales over last year and expects more growth in the future. “Implementing these practices has enabled us to go after bigger accounts,” said Jones.
Carolina Cabinet is systematically implementing lean principles throughout the plant in manufacturing and administrative departments. They have conducted training for the engineering, purchasing, project management and supply chain departments through Wilson Tech.
“Our ultimate goal is to continue our training efforts and close the loop between the manufacturing and administrative sides of the company,” said Jones. “The original value stream mapping went from the first contact with the customer until the truck delivered the product – the cash to cash cycle. Our focus is to streamline that entire process, maximize every minute, every dollar.”
IES lean specialist Kurian returned to conduct a kaizen event in the shipping department the week of August 15, and by mid-week Aycock said, “I’ve already seen improvements in this area. These guys don’t just sit in front of the class, they get in here and work with us. They’re hands on.
“We get a lot done during the week,” he continued. “We may have some items left to do at the end of the week, but we set goal dates and get them done. Most of the people in these events are the people working in the area and when they see how it’s going to help them, they really get motivated.”
“The Carolina Cabinet program is a standout project due to the level of cooperation between IES, Wilson Tech, and Carolina Cabinet,” said IES specialist Harrawood. “It is a true partnership and that has made it a success.”
The program provided training, implementation, evaluation and monitoring by IES and WTCC. “The program was not just an off-the-shelf lecture,” Harrawood said. “It was based on actual data and processes from the company. It uses real time problems and shows them how to solve these real time problems today.”
“Carolina Cabinet Company has done an outstanding job of applying the training they received,” said WTCC’s Miller. “It is strengthening the company as a whole and making it a stronger player in the market.”
August 2005
