MEP's Role
To begin, all eight shop floor managers at ASP participated in The Center’s Lean Manufacturing Champion training to further drive business growth. ASP was running 12 days on and two days off, with capacity completely maxed out. Working with The Center’s experts, the ASP team identified two main areas to address – the ‘inspect & clean’ and ‘print booklet & install’ steps. The team determined both of these steps could be done while their machine was still running, which would save 20 minutes per changeover. This would translate to producing 500 additional cases per day, or 144,000 additional cases per year, generating $331,000 in added annual revenue.
Following Lean Manufacturing Champion training, the ASP maintenance team engaged in The Center’s 5S training to address several areas in production. The paper fill area had the greatest room for improvement. The team worked to organize the area and striped the floor to mark where only boxes being staged for production were permitted, helping to significantly reduce congestion. The ASP team was fully engaged in the training process and developed auditing documents to ensure their improvements would be sustained. Investing in this lean training has enabled ASP workers at all levels to better support lean processes in the facility.