Page 12 - MetalForming September 2013

Tech Update
Gaining Speed Through Lean, and Dedicated Feedlines
When Manor Tool & Manufacturing Co., Schiller Park, IL, recently implemented its lean initiative, staff kept a keen eye on safety, which it felt could be improved—along with production efficiency—through lean management. Manor, which produces a diversified product mix of medium- to long-run stampings, began its lean journey by rolling
out 5S. And, as it started
examining its processes
through the lean initia-
tive, it quickly became
apparent that flexible
does not necessarily
equate with lean or with
safety. As an example,
general manager Kevin
Segebarth points to its
press-feed lines.
Traditionally, feed lines at Manor had never been secured to the floor nor tied to a particular press. This allowed the team to
move equipment around to meet the needs of any job as it arrived. Through kaizen events, Segebarth and his team real- ized that this approach had a negative impact on setup time, as equipment relocation, leveling and securing required as long as 3.5 hr., not to mention coil-change time.
It also was discovered that a lot of nonvalue- add time was being spent hunting for items needed to complete an opera- tion. “Our customers employ us to be techni- cians, not finders,” says Manor Tool owner Tom Simeone. “If it takes us more than 30 sec. to locate an item, then something is wrong.”
While looking for effi- ciency and process stan- dardization, the company decided to conduct a study to look at its mini-
10 MetalForming/September 2013
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