REV UP Outboard Production

Manufacturing Engineering, Apr 2005 by Destefani, Jim

"There were a lot of targeted goals we wanted to reach with this line, and we are hitting most of them," Oswald says. "We had quality goals, safety goals, and ergonomie goals.

But Mercury's main goal was improved throughput with one-piece flow, and the line is achieving that even as a second shift and production of four-cylinder engine variants ramp up.

"On our older, high-horsepower V-6 products, cycle time could be up to 120 hours from the start of a power head to the box. Now, we can put an end-model-specific order in the system, and we can box the engine two hours later. So we've significantly reduced throughput time," Oswald concludes.

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Jim Destefani

Senior Editor