Engagement Result
Company: Aircraft Component Manufacturer III
Industry: Aerospace & Defense
Project: Facilitate a Company-Wide CPI Program
Size: 625 employees
Expertise: Operational Assessment & CPI Facilitation
Actions: MainStream GS began the CPI program implementation by conducting a cultural assessment of the Company to determine their readiness for accepting change. Through this process MainStream GS determined that the manufacturing operations were most ready for this change but several other areas required additional support and encouragement. A plan was developed to address the issues identified by the assessment.
On a parallel track a technical assessment was underway to determine where the process should begin. Once completed, an interdisciplinary team, composed of manufacturing, engineering, finance, IT and sales was formed. The team was taught the fundamentals of CPI and provided with the tools for successful implementation. MainStream GS guided the team in collecting baseline data, making operational improvements, reducing set-up times on the shop floor and eliminating redundant processes in the office. Throughout the initial process the team was also able to determine capacities, develop standard work, and implement monitoring programs and measuring metrics. Working in concert with the implementation team, MainStream GS identified where extremely high percentage of labor costs were focused and where organizational bottlenecks existed with a lack of human capacity to function effectively.
Assignment: The Company was responding to a large number of requests for quotes (RFQs), but was not successful in turning the RFQs into orders. The Company was slow turning around quotes and as a result many times the customers were making purchase decisions before the Company was able to respond with their quote. The Company was losing to competitors who had higher prices and longer delivery times because of the Company’s own inefficiency in responding to client RFQs. MainStream GS was engaged to conduct an assessment on the Company’s current RFQ process and to implement performance improvement initiatives to streamline and enhance the Company’s RFQ process.
Results: As a result of MainStream GS’ work the Company now has a CPI implementation team that works with newly acquired organizations. In their own in-house program the Company has restructured departments and policies that improve work flow, reduce defects and provide more focus on final quality inspections for their highly critical products. After only seven months since the initial meeting with MainStream GS, the Company was able to reduce direct labor by $300,000 and work-in-process $400,000. In addition, lead times were reduced from 21 to 7 days.