Lean Case Study - Supplier of Automotive Pressed Parts/Assemblies

This client, a supplier of pressed parts into the automotive sector, has a division which provides low volume parts for spares and aftermarket.

Increased sales, part number proliferation and reducing batch sizes was putting severe pressure on the available press capacity and as a result there was a desire for the procurement of a new press and the necessary infrastructure changes needed to accommodate it.

Bourton Group were commissioned to improve press availability through deployment of SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies) techniques. Key personnel were trained in SMED techniques and Kaizen Improvement Events were run in three key areas. The summary results were:

Set up time reduced from 78 minutes to 15.5 minutes – giving a run time increase of 12.2%
Set up time reduced from 54 minutes to 24 minutes – giving a run time increase of 11.5%
60% reduction in floor space needed for assembly allowing a new product to be brought in with £0.5M additional turnover

As a result of this work, further capital investment was avoided.

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