Initially, lean thinking -- or multi-tasking -- was not the priority in Kim Parrish's mind. Parrish, general manager of Advanced Machining & Fabrication Inc., in Owasso, Okla., "simply needed to get more out of our equipment -- mostly conventional machines, turret lathes and such." By 2000 increasing orders motivated him into seriously considering lean training.
"We were pretty much operating as batch-and-queue, running 250 parts at a time through the shop. If problems surfaced, they tended to happen in the later operations, meaning we were scrapping entire runs when we caught mistakes. I started approaching lean pretty conventionally as a way to cut waste and keep quality high."
Parrish signed up for lean training just before the Sept. 11 attacks, a debacle that also led to canceled orders and managing in a business survival mode, he
recalls.
One of the first kaizen events Advanced ran with its lean consultant was for one of its energy services customers. "We formed a cell for short plugs and segment nuts," Parrish explains. "Machined from steel forgings, the parts are designed to allow a gas company to break into an existing line and redirect gas flow without shutting it down.