Successes

Client: TEREX
German manufacturer of heavy equipment used in construction industry with four plants in Germany and Hungary.

Objectives
The primary objectives were to implement, in three facilities, an andon-driven production system and establish standardized work for all processes to align to takt time.

Solutions
Our solutions focused on three areas:

• Alignment - aligning the policies and goals of the organization from the executives to the workers, aligning HR activities to support a culture of mutual trust and respect, and aligning the line pace to quality confirmation, material distribution and engineering support;
• Behavior modification - driving behavior through physical constraints such as andon system, fixed-position stop, and line-side material placement; and
• Systems approach – viewing all problems and improvements from a systems perspective, including strategic planning and development, policy deployment and production planning and control.

Outcomes
Our work with this client resulted in a 30% reduction in direct labor, a 50% increase in end-of-line quality confirmation, a 60% reduction in raw materials and work-in-process, 100% build-to-schedule and release to dynamic testing, a 50% rise in workforce morale (less than 3% absenteeism rate), and a successful development of a problem solving culture that resulted in solving 85% of all short-term problems within five minutes, and resolving all long-term problems in under 30 days.

Return on Investment
Over 10-fold return