Page 32 - MetalForming February 2013

Workforce Development\Eclipse Manufacturing Co.
MetalForming/February 2013 www.metalformingmagazine.com
“We spend a lot of time working through the various error messages and how to get out of them,” explains Eclipse quality manager Nicole Robin- son. “And we provide PowerPoint handouts with a lot of photographs and illustrations to try to make the process failsafe.”
a thorough, expansive, formal train- ing program kicked off in 2010, con- ducted by nearby Lakeland Technical College (LTC).
Performance Measures Improved by Leaps
and Bounds
Lean initiatives are at the core of the training programs Eclipse has developed, along with LTC; the firm also implemented layered process audits to monitor and improve 5S, safety, quality, delivery and produc- tivity. With a little less than half of the company’s 75 full-time employees having undergone lean training (30 percent of production associates and 100 percent of plant operations and engineering personnel), results are impressive. Since 2009:
• PPM quality rating for all cus- tomers has dropped from 750 to 12; • On-time delivery rating has
improved from 90 percent to 99 per- cent;
• Inventory has been cut in half;
• Overall operating efficiency improved from 94 percent to 111 per- cent of standard;
• OSHA Reportable Incident rate has dropped by 30 percent;
• Manufactured scrap has been cut in half;
• Cost of quality has been reduced by 30 percent; and
In the wake of its rising perform- ance measures has come industry and customer recognition for Eclipse.
• In 2011, Eclipse earned the Pre- cision Metalforming Association (PMA) Higgins Caditz Product Design Award, for design and development of a third-generation thermostat assembly for a key customer;
• Eclipse was named 2012 Suppli- er of the Year by Kawasaki for cus- tomer service; and
• In 2012 Eclipse was nominated for the Sheboygan County Manufac- turer of the Year award.
Enabling all of this success and recognition has been a workforce willing to not only accept conces- sions, but to learn a whole new way of operating. As sales have picked up for the company, Arndt told us, Eclipse has leveraged its lean excellence to push productivity and quality to new heights. In fact, in 2012 PMA pre- sented yet another award to Eclipse, the Zierick Manufacturing Corpora- tion Productivity Award. PMA recog- nized Eclipse for its robotic-welding cell used to assemble fan housings for a lawn-equipment manufacturer.
Quality—Expecting More from the Operators
Eclipse operates out of a 130,000- sq.-ft. plant housing 35 stamping presses, including three multi-strip programmable presses performing very complex (and award-winning) in-die assembly. Inhouse value- added processes include powder coating, assembly, resistance welding and robotic arc welding. Twenty per- cent of its products are exported to China, Mexico, Eastern Europe and Thailand.
Plant manager Dick Reese, who joined the company in 2010 and brought an extensive background in lean manufac- turing, holds a fan housing robotically welded in the cell behind him. Lean, Reese says, means reducing process variability. “As we accomplish this, we develop more consistent and pre- dictable processes, which leads to effi- ciency gains and direct financial bene- fits to the company.”
Quality training, under the direc- tion of quality manager Nicole Robin- son, received renewed focus in 2011 when the firm decided to retrain every one of its operators in core quality activities. “As a self-directed workforce, every operator is respon- sible for quality,” says Robinson, who worked previously as a CMM opera- tor and then as a quality engineer and PPAP technician.
In addition to the rigorous quali- ty classes Robinson has set up (a basic course attended by four opera- tors at a time, and a followup advanced class attended by two at a time), she has compiled specific qual- ity-process instructions in what are called Manufacturing Drawing Con- trol Plans (MDCPs). The basic-train- ing regimen covers gauges, calibra- tion tags, caliper and micrometer do’s and don’ts, while the advanced