Batesville Casket Co., Manchester, Tenn.
Employees: 375, union
Total Square Footage: 430,000
Primary Product/market: Funeral caskets
Start-up: 1970
Achievements: 7.2% drop in hours per unit since 2006; 45% improvement in recordable incidence rates from 2007 to 2008; 2004 IW Best Plants winner
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| See the other winners of IW's 2009 Best Plants award and find out how they made the top ten. |
When Batesville Casket Co.'s Manchester, Tenn., plant took its first steps toward streamlining operations 14 years ago, identifying and removing waste was the chief priority. Lean techniques and continuous improvement exercises were adopted on a broad scale.
Those efforts paid off, as Batesville Manchester saw its cost per unit plunge by nearly one-fourth since 1995, while floor space was reduced by more than half, creating the flexibility to create new initiatives. In just the last three years, Batesville Manchester has reduced its costs by 3% above inflation.
But the plant has also found that there's a profound difference between eliminating waste in a production process and creating a culture of self-improvement that's embedded in the very roots of the company.
"We're looking at trying to develop a system of self-healing and self-improving," says Aaron Withers, Batesville Manchester's plant controller. "We want to create one that can recognize problems, correct them and improve on a daily basis. We've accomplished a lot at this plant, but I can also honestly say that we're not there yet either. We always try to create a learning environment."
It's also an environment driven by competitiveness. According Mary Jo Cartwright, Batesville Manchester's director of operations, that tone begins at the management level with CEO Ken Camp and works its way down.
"Most people, when they're younger, are accustomed to competition because you grow up with it in sports and any number of activities," says Cartwright. "But as your life changes, very few of us stay competitive. And what we've seen is these people like competition. It gets them going."
When management sought to lower the company's hours per unit, Batesville Manchester not only lowered it by a third in less than a decade, but has continued to reduce it 7.2% since the beginning of 2006.
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| Batesville Casket operators Dusty Williams (from left to right), Jeff Lacy, and Eddie Sims staple the fabric that lines the interior of a casket as it comes off the line. |
"Batesville is the largest casket manufacturer in the world, producing 18- and 20-gauge steel caskets in 27 shapes and a wide palate of color combinations, along with thousands of personalization options. The Manchester plant manufactures over 1,000 caskets a day.
Batesville Manchester is unusual in that it produces 98% of the 224 parts that go into assembling a casket. That means all metal stamping, fabrication, plastic injection molding and painting is done in-house.
A section of the plant is devoted just to rubber molding, while another houses a fabric shop for cutting, stitching and stapling all the material used to line the interior of caskets. Batesville Casket even produces the metal bed frames, pillows and cushions.
"It allows us to control our own destiny," says Withers. "A lot of companies that outsourced to China for better prices are now coming back because of the flexibility that comes by doing it yourself. You can react to the needs of your customer quicker and you have a lower lead time."
That all goes back Batesville Manchester's initial first step in lean, which emphasized the power of resourcefulness.
"You can never be satisfied with where you're at because there's always more you can improve," says Cartwright. "You just have to keep looking."
