Small Parts, Big performance Tier-one supplier thrives amid constant change.
ByTim StevensContinental Teves, Morganton, N.C.At a glanceWeb Exclusive Best Practices Continental Teves, manufacturer of electronic brake systems By Tim Stevens Benchmarking contact: Charles Russell, manufacturing manager,
[email protected], 828/584-5520.
Team Meetings Continental Teves' plant manager Dennis White likens meetings at his facility to a huddle on the football field. All managers are required to attend this daily gathering that lasts a maximum of 15 minutes and occurs in a large glassed-in conference room on the production floor. Though there are chairs in the room, there is no conference table. "Getting rid of the table stops people from coming in with a lot of notebooks and overheads," says White. In a set format, discussion moves from customer issues that have occurred in the last 24 hours to major production items to materials issues. "It forces you to get out on the floor at least once a day," says White. "Likewise, employees see the management staff out on the floor. It's easy to sit and talk about problems in a sterile conference room, but you get down on the floor, and people will tell you what's wrong in a hurry."
Quality Organization The quality function at Continental Teves has been split into two specific organizations: a core group supporting the entire operation and day-to-day quality operations inside individual production teams. "The quality functions within individual production teams are nearly self standing, but do have strong dotted-line responsibility into core management," says Norbert Kaeslingk, manager, quality assurance. Core team responsibilities include supplier-quality management, advanced quality planning for new projects and design changes, initial qualification of parts with customers, QS 9000 management, customer audits, and failure analysis. Day-to-day quality challenges include tracking of reject rate and yield, and initiation of problem-solving activities directed at process or incoming-part difficulties. One of the keys to success of the quality function, according to Kaeslingk, is "strong direction regarding quality objectives and procedures -- QS-9000 or ISO 9000 will do the same -- so you have a common base that ties everyone together and that they believe in."
Operating Equipment Efficiency (OEE) While quality is still the key measurement at the plant, OEE (machine availability X quality yield X percent of optimal production rate), is now playing a significant role as a performance metric for the manufacturing operations. On the seven valve-assembly lines, OEE for each is displayed and updated every 30 seconds. "We've started using OEE a lot," says Charles Russell, plant manager. "With OEE, you're not measuring reject rates or downtime. A lot of plants do that. You're not just looking at quality; you are looking at total function of the line. Reported in real time, it's a meaningful working tool for us." Continental Teves started focusing on OEE about a year ago. While the metric itself has increased some 20%, concentration on it is linked to reductions in WIP inventory, decreased reject rates, and improved first-time yield, according to Russell. "It's a terrific metric," he says.
Visual Management Visual management is a big part of the motivational culture at Continental Teves. Throughout the plant are display mechanisms including a large scoreboard, a real-time graph of final assembly productivity rate, and miscellaneous charts showing team performance. The final assembly-rate display, for instance, is a set of coordinates with three graphed lines, including the productivity rate (updated every 60 seconds), a "best-ever" rate, and a standard based on engineering studies. "We monitor the things we think can be improved or changed," says Russell. "Charting where you are gives people the feeling of accomplishment that they have really done something as opposed to just setting a goal and saying 'we want to be there.' If you chart changes, then even little, almost insignificant changes can make a difference, and you can see that."
Training To set the workforce up for success in its challenge for continuing improvement, the company put a large portion of hourly employees through problem-solving training. Presented by an outside consultant, the training exposed the group to brainstorming techniques, use of fishbone diagrams, and problem-dissection techniques. In addition, some 150 members of the engineering corps received three days of more technical problem-solving training from Kepner-Tregoe Inc., Princeton, N.J. "This was a conscious decision about three years ago that we needed to upgrade the overall skill capability of our plant, and we set aside a significant amount of money, essentially doubling our budget for this purpose," says White. "It was a very wise decision."
Proactive Maintenance To better understand where plant maintenance was spending its time, a team reviewed maintenance activities, classing them as reactive, preventive, or new processes. The results shocked management in that at least 80% of time was spent on reactive activities. "We were rewarding a guy who could replace a motor in 15 minutes and did it every day rather than a guy who took a couple days so the motor never had to be replaced again," says White. "It was almost totally a fire-fighting approach." Since this epiphany, a total-preventive-maintenance team has been established that provides training and problem-solving skills to the 65 to 70 maintenance technicians at the facility. Reactive maintenance has been cut to about 40% as a result.
Scrap Reduction Significant scrap reduction has been a highlight of continuous improvement efforts at the plant, with scrap slashed by 50% in the first year of the scrap-reduction team's activity. The team meets weekly, attacking the top three causes of scrap until they are reduced and a different top three emerge. The team was originally formed when a quality technician heard a presentation by the CEO who said the company had fallen short of its profit goals. The technician came to plant manager White afterward, and said, "I know where the money is." He produced evidence of $4 million worth of scrap produced that year. White gave him the go-ahead to form a team and before long the technician had established this disciplined approach. "He was running the show, setting expectations for engineers and supervisors," says White.
Ergonomics In 1996 a cross-functional team was deployed to investigate ergonomic issues in the work environment with an eye to reducing cumulative trauma disorders. This team first attended a training program at the North Carolina Ergonomics Resource Center in Raleigh. Subsequent review of plant procedures and processes by the team led to recommendations that reduced cumulative trauma disorders by 50%.
Job Rotation Because the assembly lines at Continental Teves are linear in their layout, workers do not have the kind of face-to-face-communication opportunities afforded in a more cellular, U-shaped set-up. To provide what plant manager Dennis White calls a "common thread of shared experience," workers rotate positions every hour. This rotation gives them the chance to communicate, and also has minimized repetitive-stress injuries.
- In-plant defects cut 70% over last five years.
- Warranty costs associated with defects cut 71%.
- Units per day per person increased from 11 to 18 in last three years.
- Unit volume increased 200% over last five years while total inventory dropped 35%.
- 1.4 million work hours without a lost-time accident.
