Henry Technologies

The Challenge

Facing challenging market conditions and the need to be able to match customer requirements more closely in relation to lead-time and cost, the management team at Henry Technologies understood that they needed to make significant rapid improvements within their processes.

It was with this backdrop that Henry Technologies conducted their first 'pilot' Kaizen Blitz event. A ten-strong Kaizen team was selected from internal and external representatives. The goals for this Kaizen event were as follows:

• Reduce lead-time from four weeks to one week
• Reduce standard cost by 15%
• Reduce the number of workpiece lifts by 50%
• Eliminate first-off inspection
• Reduce inventory by 60%

Once the multi-level, multi disciplinary team had been introduced to the principles underpinning the 'Toyota Production System', they quickly set about identifying and eliminating the major areas of waste and problems. Some of the major opportunities, which the team identified, related to the amount of movement of material between each manufacturing process and the amount of non-value add activity within each process.

The new process, designed and implemented by the people working in it has produced dramatic results not only in performance but it is also recognised as a better place to work in.

Results

The Kaizen Blitz Team, under the guidance of Ross International, surpassed all of their expectations in terms of the results achieved after only five days. The new process, which they designed and implemented during the Blitz week, gave the following results:

• Productivity increased by 169%
• Work in progress (WIP) was reduced by 91%
• Lead-time slashed from four weeks to one week
• Standard cost was reduced by 15%
• Storage space required to hold material within the process was cut by 62%

The team also achieved a 47% improvement in workplace organisation by introducing a 5S process within the new area. Finally, the need for first-off inspection has been eliminated.

The gauntlet was laid down to the sales team to translate these major efficiency and lead-time improvements into increased customer orders.

The sales team took advantage of the increased productivity to give a cost reduction to customers. This, combined with increased responsiveness, due to the shortened leadtimes, allowed them to increase sales by 125%.

To sum up, an excellent outcome was achieved where the company, the employee and the customer all benefited from the major improvements which the team have designed and implemented.