Case Study - Consumer Products Manufacturer: Lean Helps Manufacturer Manage Demand Fluctuations
Client
An Asia-based consumer goods plant that manufactures one million units of a complex product each week.
Challenge
The plant needed to become a more flexible producer in order to meet changing market demands for the wide variety of its product. The company also wanted to improve productivity while maintaining rigid compliance to standards. The complexity of production and the size of the operation complicated the effort.
Solution
Using kaizen internally and with key suppliers, TBM Consulting Group and the client introduced a continuous-improvement mentality into the workforce while providing a structured methodology and framework for sustaining improvements and uncovering more opportunities for improvement. To improve flexibility in order fulfillment, the plant reconfigured from a typical large-batch line producer with a few densely populated lines to a greater number of much shorter lines with fewer operators and longer takt times.
Results
Productivity at the plant has increased 25 percent, and it now can fulfill any customer order configuration with more efficient deployment of resources.
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