THE CHALLENGE

Surrounded by strategies for improvement, MTD was looking to increase market share with the help of MAGNET's Lean Manufacturing Business Group. In order to effect change company-wide, MTD asked MAGNET to conduct a Lean evaluation of all its facilities.

As a result of the evaluation, the first step selected was to clean up manufacturing areas and begin to organize. The process began at an MTD facility which provides assembly and packaging, as well as serves as a distribution center for MTD's aftermarket and replacement part business. The company found that clutter was often hiding the reality of what was going on at the facility.

THE APPROACH

With MAGNET's assistance, MTD applied these principles in one particular work cell at the facility and discovered some important cost savings. When a particular heat sealing machine for packaging parts was down for adjustments or set-up, the workers on either side of the machine continued to build up inventory. It appeared productive but a lot of additional work was actually being created in the process.

At first, the cell operators were convinced they needed to build extra inventory during the machine's downtime in order to maintain the flow. However, by cleaning up the area, controlling the WIP, and dealing only with the process itself, the cell operators were able to see that if every element cycled with the machine, the flow was much better and ran more efficiently, notably improving productivity.

The cross-functional Lean team was able to rebalance the production crew from seven to six associates, saving $2,600 for one group of parts alone. Based on those savings, the team expects to save a total of $58,000 annually on all the families that run through that particular machine.

CUSTOMER QUOTE

"Whatever we've needed to accomplish, the Lean team has been empowered to do it with MAGNET's assistance."
Brad Gray - MTD Continuous Improvement Manager

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