THE CHALLENGE

Management at SuperTrapp wanted to address obstacles the company faced in meeting customer ship dates including increasing inventory levels, works in progress and finished goods. In addition, the company needed to tackle capacity constraints, increasing SuperTrapp's ability to manufacture current product lines while adding new product lines each year.

THE APPROACH

With the assistance of MAGNET, SuperTrapp set on an ambitious project to improve manufacturing throughput, reduce inventories and meet customer shipment dates. The company began by implementing Lean thinking throughout the organization. SuperTrapp's executive team was educated on the Lean process while managers and production workers received Lean training provided by MAGNET. After training, SuperTrapp began with the basics of 5S, then moved to value stream mapping one of its five product lines.

The first step was the development of a cross-functional team represented by management, marketing, quality and production workers. MAGNET experts helped the team develop a current state value stream map to understand what was taking place in the existing production line. Opportunities for improvement were identified, improvement goals documented and a future state map developed. Implementation of the identified areas was then completed, including changes in the production process and the development for manufacturing cells.

With the knowledge gained from working with MAGNET, SuperTrapp continues to implement continuous improvement methods to other product lines and looks forward to the additional benefits of this manufacturing improvement project.

CUSTOMER QUOTE

"I've been impressed with MAGNET because they take the time to understand our needs and react quickly."
Kevin Berger - General Manager

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