Cannon Instrument Company Improves Processes Through Lean Manufacturing Training
Company Name : Cannon Instrument Co. Inc
Location: State College, PA
Industry: SIC 38 - Measuring, Analyzing & Controlling Instruments
Year of Study : 2001
Type of Assistance: Training-Principles of Lean Manufacturing with Live Simulation.
Profile: Cannon Instrument Co. is located in State College, PA and is a privately owned manufacturer of viscometers, constant temperature baths, viscosity standards and accessories for the global markets.
Situation: The company has recently developed several new products that are being offered with many options. After introduction, they have received many more orders than expected for this new device and this has caused longer than acceptable backlogs. To meet these new demands, the company staff reviewed their operations systems and determined that they need to be updated based on good Lean Manufacturing principles. During this review, the staff also determined that these improvements would benefit all of their product lines.
Solution: After several senior managers attended the Lean 101 (Overview of Lean Manufacturing Strategies) training through the IMC, they determined that their initial approach would be to train all of their people in these principles and then start planning and implementing the Lean principles into their systems. After receiving this overview training, several key processes were selected, as a pilot implementation effort to see if the results would meet the company needs.
Results: The initial results of this pilot implementation provided nearly 20% reduction in inventory, the elimination of subassemblies through the flattening of the BOMs, a wide range of reduction in subassembly times (3 40%), nearly 20% reduction in cycle times and 25% reduction in labor costs. In addition, the increasing of the size of the cells reduced the dependence on individual key production personnel by cross training each person in the cell to do all jobs. The effects of this are numerous and include increasing employee morale, reducing impacts of vacation and sick time while simplifying the introduction and training of new personnel. These many positive results have caused a new level of excitement in the staff and a great interest in having these principles implemented company wide. The second year plans included the next step in training, Value Stream Mapping to the majority of staff members. Plans are now being developed to start implementing these principles company wide.