Since 2004, we have been helping companies improve productivity by implementing lean manufacturing processes. We provide this service both as a standalone consulting engagement or as a compliment to DemandCaster® since it helps address the supply planning issues that DemandCaster® helps to uncover.
Though we provide all levels of lean manufacturing consulting, our focus is on re-laying out manufacturing or distribution facilities to promote continuous flow and when applicable batch sizes of one.
Slow-moving companies typically have manpower, material, and equipment operating in a spaghetti layout with long distances of walking, material movement, and back-and-forth batch processing. Personnel do not communicate well and tend to work in their own silos with minimal synchronicity between processing steps. These activities result in waste, adding significant cost to the operation.
Our LeanFacility® solution addresses the source of waste by physically changing the manner in which people interact with material, equipment, information, and each other. We use CAD and a collaborative process of facility design that integrates the practice of lean to deploy warehouse and manufacturing layouts that minimize movement and inventory, and promote the continuous flow of material and information.
Our goal is to re-engineer the production or order-fulfillment process to maximize the revenue-creation tasks and minimize or obliterate the non-value added part of the work day. We pump up the productivity by squeezing in more work without adding effort.
Our collaborative and hands-on approach to a lean facility design promotes buy-in and almost immediate financial returns since we involve the personnel who have a direct stake in the creation of the new processes. By having those employees participate in changing the physical nature of how their work is done, biases are confronted and desired behaviors reinforced to assure a more robust outcome.