Page 33 - MetalForming August 2016

and other key performance metrics are at a world-class level now.”
Buy-In from Customers, Suppliers and Staff was Key
To implement the data-driven process, Laser Precision had to earn buy-in from its customers, outsourcing vendors and its own workforce.
“You need sophisticated customers that can convey their demand signals electronically, which is a huge compo- nent of this,” explains Adams. “The OEMs and our other customers went all-in because they reap the benefits. On our end, we needed to invest in the data infrastructure to refine, translate and deploy our customers’ distinct demand signals.”
Vendor alignment was a concerted effort to identify suppliers based on their capabilities and capacities, according to Adams.
“We communicated expectations to our vendors, providing them with tar- gets that would allow us to meet our
customers’ delivery and quality expec- tations,” he says. “That evolved into synchronizing the disparate elements of the value stream and conveying to our vendors the expectations of the end user, in real time.”
Even with that level of buy-in, inter- nal buy-in can be the most challenging component of any business-process evolution.
“It is difficult for people to embrace change,” says Adams. “But fortunately we had a close-knit group of managers and employees willing and capable of embracing our vision. Without a com- plete commitment from all of the stake- holders, the process would not have worked. We are very lean and have very technologically competent people here. Overall, we recognized that the only way to insure the success of our business was to perfect our performance. With so many variable elements of volatility in the value stream, synchronization seemed to be the only answer. With the system in place we can concentrate on
leveraging value instead of performing mundane, day-to-day tasks.”
To date, the system has reduced part costs, assured on-time supply, opti- mized material yields and enhanced quality performance, according to Adams, while waste, in the form of non-value-added activities, has been eliminated.
“At the end of the day we are a metal fabricator and produce a tangible prod- uct,” concludes Adams. “But we focus our attention on interpreting and deploying the information necessary to do our job right. Industry as a whole is beginning to understand the funda- mental nature of electronic collabora- tion and the impact it has on agility and performance. We feel fortunate to have gotten there a little sooner than most, but our industry is beginning to recognize that there is a better way to conduct our business, and there does seem to be increased awareness. More and more companies are recognizing the big-data movement.” MF
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