Before you ice the cake - Column

Automotive Industries, Feb, 1998 by Jim Harbour

Car and truck manufacturers world-wide strive to make every manufacturing plant the best-in-class for both quality and productivity. Regardless of whether they are assembly, body panel stamping, engine, transmission or component plants, every plant wants to be rated the best.

It's particularly difficult for an assembly plant staff and its workforce to make huge improvements in either quality or productivity Design staff, product engineering, and advanced manufacturing engineering define the product, its component designs, and facilities for the assembly processing. So the plant staff and workforce are, in effect, handed a newly-designed assembly process. It's rather like receiving a freshly-baked cake that has yet to be iced.

What's left for the plant workforce to do? The individual component designs and their manufacturing processes dictate the final level of the vehicle's quality Even outside supplier quality is measured, verified and controlled by some staff function. Direct labor requirements are specifically defined by operation and workstation Sure they can be improved, but by how much? Perhaps 5% to 10%.

The plant staff and the entire plant workforce have one goal: to put the "icing" on the "cake." But icing this new cake means long, laborious work including defining every manufacturing process in body, paint and general assembly to ensure every process is in control, is repeatable, and can be improved. It also means analyzing every assembly function in minutes to eliminate non-value-added functions.

If the up-front product and process design is comprehensive, then the assembly plant is left to focus only on the "icing" -- assembling the new car or truck with world-class quality. And, of course, the highest productivity.

Coupled with any new product, the goal of every assembly plant is to make its assembly process lean. That means reconfiguring every plant and each operation within the four walls. The plant focus must be on:

* Workplace organization

* Lead time reduction

* Small lot production

* One-piece flow

* Error proofing

* Setup time reduction

* System commonization

Implementing lean manufacturing must be the major assembly plant focus before any new product is introduced, since to be world-class means making each new model with under 50 quality defects per 100 vehicles, and less than 20 man-hours per vehicle in assembly.

Surely the focus in assembly plants is to "ice the cake." But what about body stamping plants, where the design, product engineering, and process engineering staffs can literally control the plant's future? In stamping, commonization must be a major focus -- meaning common press lines, common automation and, above all, standardized die designs part by part. For example, every door die design must use the same process steps and number of operations, which then allows standard press lines and automation. The days when press lines could operate at 15 strokes per minute, while automation ran only 10 strokes per minute and dies were only capable of eight strokes, are all gone. The goal is to rim every press at maximum press capacity.

In addition to commonizing and applying lean techniques in stamping, there is a major focus to reduce engineered scrap. Too many producers use 1,500 gross pounds of steel to make one car, but end up with 750 of those pounds cut up in little pieces and clattering down the scrap chute. That 50% engineered scrap rate equals $260 in new steel heading right back to the steel null for melting. The goal for engineered scrap should be below 30%.

The day is fast approaching when all assembly facilities and most stamping plants will be standardized. When those tasks are complete, then you can look to plant staffs to take every new product and simply put the "icing" on the "cake."

Jim Harbour is a manufacturing consultant in Troy, Michigan.