Lean manufacturing in a cornerstone of the continuous improvement philosophy that allows us to consistently increase value to our customers. We don't use a cookie cutter approach, but rather the process that makes the most sense to solve the problem at hand. Whether it is a Six Sigma event, Kaizen methodology, Statistical Process Controls, or Design of Experiment Methods. LONGWOOD utilizes the technique best suited to streamlining our manufacturing processes and support systems, and to refine product reliability.
The results have been startlingly significant:
Improved efficiency and speed by manufacturing and packing most products in the same cell in which they were molded.
Shortened lead times by more than 80%.
Improved reaction time to changing customer needs.
Reduction of our own and our customers' inventories by establishing Kanban "consumption replacement" systems, whereby only what is used is replenished.
Elimination of large inventories that hide production inefficiencies through Just-In-Time Delivery and Just-In-Time Production, resulting in lower inventories and 95%+ on-time delivery.
Quicker response time to customer needs and specialty requirements by designing our rapid production processes.
Often able to share cost savings with our customers from improved processes.
A Case History
Application: Automotive part shipped to Tier 1 manufacturer
Challenge: Reduce customer's inventory and space requirements
Solution: Longwood used to ship parts once a week to one of our customers. Our customer was happy with this arrangement and our performance. But since we had improved our operations, we knew we could do better. We invited our customer to join us in a Kaizen event and we all went to work. The results were fantastic - our customer's inventory decreased by 67% and they needed 47% less space to store the goods. We realized similar benefits. This was definitely a "win-win".
