Mike Gilchrist, Operations Manager

Changes within the Manufacturing area over the last year are significant. Overall our company has adopted the Lean Enterprise systematic approach to measurement and continuous improvement. This is, of course, company-wide, but here I will focus on the changes in our Manufacturing department.

At Bauer, manufacturing is comprised of fabrication, custom machining, and assembly. Each area is fed from customer orders through our design and engineering departments. The output of each area is a highly coordinated effort that is focused on our customer's success.

In the fabrication area we are divided into two areas: one of which is dedicated to welding, and the other dedicated to sheet metal work. This is where we build the skeletons for the machines that we sell. Each customer's order starts in this area and is then delivered to the assembly area fully constructed and painted.

Our assembly area is then staged with the unassembled machine. This usually consists of the Test Stand along with all of the standard and special components that have been procured. Our highly skilled hydraulic, pneumatic, and electrical technicians then build to completion and often times get involved with final customer acceptance.

All the while, our machine shop is busily producing custom tooling, adapters, assembly tools and gauges for each customer order. Our machine shop is comprised of a variety of standard machines ranging from turning to milling to grinding and heat treatment of metals. The personnel within this area are highly trained Tool Makers by profession - all with many years of dedicated experience.

The manufacturing areas have been trained and exposed to several 5s Kaizen events over the last 12 months. The first event was held in the custom machining area.

The focus was on organization, raw material flow, tool control and the establishment of weekly metrics. At the end of the week-long event, we sorted, shined, set in order, focused on safety and laid the ground work for a sustained environment. We had just over 20 major points of improvement and a major facelift to the department.

The second event was another 5s in the paint area. Our paint area is comprised of a large ventilated booth, a small ventilated booth, paint mix equipment and paint storage. Many hours are spent in this area preparing our products in a variety of colors and finishes. Prior to the 5s event, this area was a bottleneck to the system. We had safety issues that prohibited the use of the small paint booth, and there was no system in place to set priorities and work flow. Again, the team worked for an entire week and in the end, we increased capacity by 50% by re-opening the small paint booth. We improved productivity by 30% by designing and building special material handling equipment within the large paint booth. We established a maintenance schedule for both booths and also established a scheduling/material staging area.

Another 5s was held in the welding area. The focus here was to rearrange the equipment and welding supplies. We also expanded the area slightly by the rearrangement of the raw material storage area. In the end we had a home for all hand tools on one of the largest shadow boards I've ever helped build. We also established an in-coming area where welding jobs from other areas of manufacturing are staged with work travelers and a scheduling board. Throughput has been improved by having a more organized work area and the area is also safer to work in.

All of these, and other, improvements have created a cleaner, safer, more efficient working environment for our employees, as well as increased our production and the quality of our products.