United Technologies Electronic Controls, Huntington, Ind.
Employees: 730, union
Total Square Footage: 144,000
Primary Product/market: electronic controls for the heating, ventilation and air condition (HVAC) industry
Start-up: 1990
Achievements: over 3 million hours worked without a lost workday case; received the 2007 Carrier President's Award for Environmental, Health & Safety Excellence; named a VPP Star facility in Indiana since 2001
Continuous improvement initiatives typically focus on eliminating waste, driving down costs, reducing inventories and other efficiency improvements. Certainly, UT Electronic Controls, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. and a unit of Carrier Corp., has seen all of the expected gains from its continuous improvement programs, but there's an additional component that is particularly attractive to any U.S.-based manufacturer -- their efforts have brought in new business. Not only that, but the new business was brought in from China.
Automation technology gets some of the credit. A new thermostat design based on surface mount technology (UTEC assembles circuit boards into controls used for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC, units) could be made in a shorter amount of time and with fewer operators here in the United States than over in China. Credit also goes to a value stream mapping project that UTEC undertook, which focused on moving a product line to flow manufacturing, eliminating waste, reducing setup time for the surface mount technology and improving overall productivity.
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