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Feature Industry Comment The struggle against inefficiency


Though Communism may be declining in China, the Theory of Continuous Revolution may have some parallels on free market manufacturing management thinking. This is particularly true in the case of lean manufacturing ideology, which demands constant change and re-assessment. Managing director of Cressall Resistors, Cy Wilkinson, explains how to keep production in step with increased sales


experience when I E


ven management initiatives that worked when they were first intro- duced may have to be set aside for new plans eventually. This was my joined Cressall


Resistors five years ago as manufactur- ing director. The 100 year old company’s order book was growing fast, but pro- duction was struggling to keep up, qual- ity was slipping and its on time delivery (OTD) was down to 50%. Having said that, while its own high standards may have been slipping it was still light years ahead of its UK competition.


Cressall Resistors has two manufac- turing bases, one in Leicester and the other in Dereham, Norfolk. The com- pany, which employs around 100 people, manufactures a range of elec- trical power resistors for customers around the world in oil and gas, aero- space, automotive, engineering, marine, traction and defence. These are for applications such as dynamic braking for industrial drives and rail traction, neutral earthing for trans- former and generator protection, har- monic filters, motor starters, and a range of portable load banks for on- site load testing. Today, OTD and right first time (RFT) are 94-98% even though sales volume has grown three-fold without the need for extra floor space. This has come about through a process of continuous change. Having spent the last four and a half years ensuring that attendance and input into the daily operations meeting was mandatory - and to be fair to my team everyone has recognised the importance of the meeting - the ses- sions were getting stale and it was time to change.


Driving ownership We needed to revitalise not only the way the meeting was running but also to drive the ownership closer to the cell leaders. The answer has been rel- atively simple daily management boards focussed on each cell, so instead of the cell leaders leaving the shop floor to come to a meeting room, the team goes to the workplace and has a stand up meeting there. It is up to the cell leader to report on where we are, what obstacles we need to


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overcome and what achievements we have made.


The meeting stays focussed on the issues at hand and problems that might have gone unnoticed are dealt with. The team, including the cell leader, are visible at the coal face and actions that need to be completed that day are followed up. In most cases the actions are completed that day. The next stage was to ensure a place


for everything and everything in its place, while striving to improve our six sigma (6S) process to identify all com- ponents. This was implemented with a barcode and a digital photo to represent the part within the tote - a logical step and not rocket science.


Above: managing director of Cressall Resistors, Cy Wilkinson


Below: Cressall manufactures a wide range of electrical power resistors


The workers needed to feel they were part of the new team so we pro- vided everyone with new Cressall work wear. This improved the image of the employees, heightened security (because if someone is on-site with- out a uniform, there is a good chance that they shouldn’t be) and allowed staff to preserve their personal clothes for personal wear. We also introduced lean training - four and five day offerings, leading the site towards leaner operations and the staff to NVQ Level 2. Little more than 18 months in, space savings range from 14-60%, employee and operator movement is down by between 50-60%, single piece flow has reduced work in process, stock take time is down 50% and financial turnover has increased 100%.


Conclusion


When all orders are bespoke, most of the room for error occurs at the begin- ning, so we put closed loop systems in place to pick them up fast and take immediate preventive action to ensure that when similar projects


Operational strategy The entire operational strategy was based on getting control of quality and delivery, studying everything from workforce development to key performance indicators (KPIs). We checked whether the right compo- nents were in the right place at the right


time, factory layouts and


equipment, and how everything was being maintained. Cressall makes engineered products to customer specific requirements. It holds no finished stock. We got suppli- ers on board to manage their own inventory (VMI), introducing kanbans for all fast moving parts. Our strategy incorporated the use of eight lean tools - value stream mapping, 5S, standard work, flow, pull, total productive main- tenance (TPM), mistake-proofing and set-up reduction.


Above: Cressall’s old order book was growing fast, but production was struggling to keep up, quality was slipping and its on time delivery (OTD) was down to 50%


come up, mistakes will not be repeated. Every instance is logged electronically and cannot be closed unless preventive measures are in place and signed off. Our continuous revolution has only just begun and we do not expect it to ever end.


Cressall Resistors www.cressall.com T: 0116 273 3633


Enter 204 FEBRUARY 2014 Automation


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