• Customer Video Case Study — Improved On-Time Delivery, 28% Gain in Inventory Turns and 43% Reduction in Inventory Overall
• Lean Manufacturing Techniques Produce Results At Ingersoll-Rand’s Hussmann Corp. Click to Download
• Emerson Lean - from Strategy to Execution
• Lean Initiative Fires Up Customer Satisfaction for American Water Heater
• Case Study - Lower Inventory Costs and Improved Customer Relations
• Case Study- Manual vs. Electronic Kanban
• Case Study - Ultriva Pilot Results

Hear how world-class manufacturer Emerson Electric uses Lean thinking following a "Ready, Aim, Fire" model to reduce cycle times and remove waste. Through the years, Emerson has expanded the scope of Lean from shop floor, to total value stream focus, to enterprise-level thinking. This archived event, featuring Emerson's VP of Manufacturing Ray Keefe, tells you about the company's best practices for Lean; the electronic kanban at Emerson; and the best places to implement pull-based strategies. Click here to tune in.

Join Rick Shuppert, VP Materials and Distribution for American Water Heater Co. in a Manufacturing Business Technology Webinar to hear how American Water Heater warmed up to its customers by reducing inventory, increasing on-time deliveries, and squeezing out operations expenses.

American Water Heater Co. is making a habit out of collecting Supplier of the Year awards from its best customers. And it can attribute that recognition to the way it works with its own suppliers. A pull-based inventory system based on technology from Ultriva, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard and supported by processes that constantly exchange real-time information with suppliers-allowed American Water Heater to grow much faster than the competition, even while increasing inventory turns by 20 percent. What's more, on-time delivery is hitting 99.5 percent-a number that obviously means happier customers. Click here to tune in.

Top

Fasco Motors, an Electrical Components Division of Tecumseh Products Company, is a manufacturer of the world's most complete line of custom fractional horsepower motors, blowers and gear motors. Fasco employs over 5,000 individuals across 13 facilities.

Fasco's operations were spread across multiple plant locations in the U.S. and Mexico. Components manufactured in U.S. plants were being consumed by the assembly plant in Mexico and then shipped directly to their customers worldwide. In addition, their distribution center was obtaining after-service parts from the plant for shipment to their customers.

Fasco is a repetitive goods manufacturer and their MRP system was unable to handle the production scheduling efficiently. This led to the following problems:

• Excess inventory
• Stock-outs
• Planners spending most of their time on emergencies
• Problems with suppliers flooding parts based on MRP schedules and blanket Purchase Orders
• Shortages resulting in long customer lead times
• Loss of machine time in both plants
• Facilities across geographic borders lacked visibility into each other's operations and inventory status

The successful implementation of Ultriva resulted in the following benefits for Fasco Motors:

• 20% to 50% savings on inventory. This included not only savings on inventory carrying cost, but also associated overhead in storage, tracking, obsolescence, etc.
• Elimination of lost machine time due to unavailability of inventory.
• Line side scheduling instead of forecast based ordering saved several thousands of manual ERP transactions per year resulting in substantial bottom line savings.
• Supplier communication and delivery performance improved dramatically and also gave Fasco better control over supplier shipments.
• Better customer retention and sales based on improved delivery cycles.
• Real time visibility of WIP.
• Plants gained the ability to control and manage the 'Physical Flow of Goods' between the facilities and with suppliers.

An Ingersoll-Rand (IR) company, Hussmann is a world leader in manufacturing, selling, installing and servicing its merchandising equipment and refrigeration systems to customers in over 80 countries.

The million square feet Hussmann facility at Bridgeton, MS, was facing problems with inventory management and control. Efforts to track and control the movement of inventory through MRP did not meet with much success since MRP served as a forecast-based planning system that was not effective in tracking material flow. Inventory worth millions of dollars accumulated at the warehouse leading to excessive holding costs and increased operating costs.

Following a detailed study of various manufacturing models, the management at Bridgeton facility decided to implement a manual kanban system. However, soon after implementing kanban, the plant experienced limitations that are inherent in a manual kanban process, such as:

• Lost or duplicate cards
• Problems extending kanban pull to external suppliers and related plants
• For distant suppliers, there was no way of knowing for sure that the necessary parts were in process
• When demand fluctuated, it was extremely time consuming to re-size the Kanban loop
• Significant time and resources were required to audit and manage the physical Kanban cards
• Lack of cycle time and other KPI measurement for continuous improvement analysis
• This difficulty in scaling kanban processes for expanded manufacturing operations led to a management decision to deploy an electronic kanban solution.

Ultriva hosted a pilot for the Bridgeton site and managed the subsequent deployment of Ultriva products.

The successful implementation of Ultriva resulted in the following benefits for Hussmann:

Before Ultriva Implementation	After Ultriva Implementation
Experienced stock-outs of at least once a week prior to Ultriva implementation	No stock-outs in the 12 months following implementation
Tedious weekend audits	No lost kanban cards
Expediting charges and excess inventory	Efficient vendor replenishment resulting in 40% to 60% in inventory reduction
11 data entry screens for MRP application	A single barcode scan now captures all information
High inventory levels to manage spikes	Ability to manage sudden spikes in demand
Tedious manual stock checking	MRP system now has more and better inventory data than ever before

A multi-billion dollar, global manufacturer of electrical, electromechanical and electronic products, the company has five primary segments: process management, appliance and tools, climate technologies, industrial automation and network power. With a global presence spanning 150 countries and 300 plants worldwide, the company is advantageously positioned with the infrastructure, knowledge and experience to provide integrated product solutions around the world. The division with which Ultriva worked has five manufacturing facilities around the world, including McKinney (USA), Nuevo Laredo (Mexico), Gallardon (France), Bologna (Italy) and Shanghai (China).

The pilot focused on three suppliers. These suppliers represented 407 part numbers with a historic inventory value of $621,000. The implementation sought to reduce inventory levels to an amount that was more than sufficient to cover reasonably expected usage. Based off this conservative style model, it was projected that a $96,000 reduction in non-consignment parts will be realized in addition to the benefits of reducing $106,000 of consignment inventory from the processes, acknowledging the benefits of leaning the entire process, not just the portion visible financially.

• Implemented at 8 plants in 12 months
• Integrated with PRMS, DATAPOINT, MAPICS MRP and home grown mainframe using Supplier, Interplant and Customer Replenishment
• Over 75% reduction in average on-hand inventory
• Over 80% reduction in standard deviation between inventory peaks and troughs

As a corporate mandate, Ultriva is the preferred provider for Electronic Kanban across all their plants.

Top