Textile Manufacturing Company Profile
- Products in the aerospace, infrastructure, and commodities industries
- Three site operation with three shifts
- Materials used include nylon, fiberglass, Kevlar and carbon fibers
Business Situation
To compliment the company’s growth strategy, executive operations expertise was needed to establish objectives and policies. Leadership was searching for a market niche to avoid a commodity product offering. In addition, customer and supplier relationships needed to be improved. Benefits sought were a robust production system that could sustainably manufacture specialty fabrics, while improve productivity, cost controls, and customer satisfaction.
Well trained technicians and supervisors for this industry were difficult to replace within the aging workforce. In addition, equipment breakdowns were common with preventative maintenance concepts yet to be fully introduced.
Solution
Operational performance as well as all functional skills were analyzed and compared to the established company strategy. In addition to training, operational metrics were changed to address overproduction, frequent change-overs, and wasteful equipment utilization behaviors.
Improvement activities and metrics were aligned with the company strategy and linked to track effectiveness. An in-house technician certification program was implemented capturing the company’s best practices for future generations.
Skill Blocks for every production position were developed and integrated into the incentive program to reinforce the pay for performance policy.
A total productive maintenance program was formalized to include a spare parts inventory control system. Two value streams were identified with visual management and inventory pull systems implemented.
Net Margin: Up 6%
Outside Warehousing: Eliminated
Made to Stock Production: > 50% to < 20%
