Invertec Ltd

"Chris Eldridge of MAS gave us an excellent introduction to the principles of Lean production for all members of staff. Thereafter, they and Chris quickly identified priorities, and Chris ably coached staff to deliver rapid results. The changes we have made, and will continue to make, would not have been possible without Chris’s expertise, enthusiasm, and, most critically, his ability to win the trust of all participants in the change process." David Paulson, Managing Director, Invertec Ltd

Background

Invertec has had a long history of manufacturing high-quality lighting products for the UK and for export. It operates in a specialist market in the public transport supply chain.

A rising demand for new buses at home and abroad has seen Invertec grow significantly over the last 5 years. In the last four months, a rapidly growing order book has resulted in slowly increasing lead-times to customers.

Invertec is keen to continuously improve the service to its customers and has invested significantly in its staff over the last two years. One aspect of this investment in personnel has been to put many of the shop-floor and office staff through the highly respected NVQ in Business Improvement Techniques.

Invertec asked South West MAS to work with the shop floor staff to build on the NVQ training and expand the implementation of lean manufacturing techniques to improve efficiency and reduce customer lead-times.

Scope

The project had a number of aspects to it but was focused on:
•Bringing all staff up to speed with an introduction to lean manufacturing
•Improving the shop floor layout
•Reducing batch and queue
•Parts rationalisation
•Implementing visual management techniques on the shop floor

Method

The first days of the project were used to provide a tailored introduction to 'Lean' to the entire company and this provided a level ground on which to build the improvements upon.

The next phases of the project were spent with key production personnel understanding the processes and issues, listening to the ideas from the team and gaining a consensus on the next steps.

The current layout of the shop floor created a great deal of excess movement and could be changed relatively easily. This therefore was tackled first with everybody helping out evenings and weekends.

Options and Recommendations

•Improve the layout of the stores
•Dispose of and archive obsolete and slow moving stock
•Re-layout and bring together a number of production lines
•Improve the internal transportation of long and awkward parts
•Reduce kitting time buy improving the availability of parts on the production line

Further Actions

•Further reduce batch size and increase flow
•Improved shop floor measures to monitor and measure improvements
•Rationalisation of components to simplify the BOM and reduce subassembly complexity