NEW CONTRACT FOR FUNDING TRAINING
The College of the Canyons just received our eighth contract with the State of California Employment Training Panel.
Over the last year, 40% of the employees in our program were trained in various levels of Continuous Process Improvement, and an additional 20% in CPI with Vocational English as a Second Language. Global market pressures and uncertainty in the economy are driving California manufacturers to improve or lose their customers. The demand for cost reduction, elimination of waste, improved productivity and quality, and for fast turn time is greater than ever.
SUCCESS STORIES
Employee Training Institute success stories show how the training we provided in CPI methods have made significant impact on companies such as: Kirkhill TA Mfg, Pacific Metal Stamping, Bayless Engineering, Answer Products, Gruber Systems, Loud Engineering, General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems Inc., to name a few.
An astounding 90% increase in earnings and a 68% increase in daily production output were seen at Kirkhill TA in their Channel Tape division. A healthy 88% reduction in Work In Process (WIP) was also achieved. These accomplishments were due to initiating Kanban systems, cross training, and a 5S program through their Employee Training Institute Lean Training program. Their fourth class is in progress.
Pacific Metal Stamping has had three successful classes, each involving nearly half of their 35 employees. One of the major elements of their success was due to the improved level of communication and teamwork that inspired employees to make other changes in their work habits.
The results included: a whopping 40% reduction in WIP, a 35% increase in production capability, and a drastic cut in through put from 5 weeks to 5 days, and they are still improving on that. In their third class, they reduced set-up time from 1.25 hours to 9 minutes, and the trainer wants to come back to cut that in half!
At Bayless Engineering, their 5S campaign cut three hours off each day’s work, as they organized templates, tools and processes! Creating a “cellular” manufacturing style saved an hour per shift. Setup time was cut from 2 hours to ½ hour, a significant number in their operation with over 6 shifts a week in a 24/7 cycle. Employees improved the ‘visual factory’ by marking off the floor area for each process and by placing descriptions of job processes in each area to standardize performance, improve quality and reduce wasted time. Reassessing the way products to be worked were loaded onto machines brought about changes in procedure to minimize movements and injuries, saving Bayless 2 hours a day, 6 shifts a week—and reducing risk of injuries.
Answer Products placed 90% of their employees in Lean Manufacturing training, and gave them each a refresher course, over a two year period.
The resulting changes included: Reduced floor space required for production by 85%; improved throughput (cycle time) for one manufacturing cell from 5 days to 10.4 minutes; Work In Progress reduced by 5,000 pieces to 120 pieces; reduced number of steps in each step of the manufacturing process; through employee suggestion, reduced the number of employees required in a cell from 23 to 5, making way for additional cells to provide greater production capabilities; created a new cell to mass produce customized orders.
SMALL COMPANIES OR LARGE
Over half of the Employee Training Institute’s clients are firms with under 100 employees. Small employers, job shops, companies from all industries are using the not-so-common sense principles of Lean Manufacturing and Continuous Process Improvement to increase their bottom line.
OTHER IMPORTANT CLASS OFFERINGS
Other important classes have emerged this past year, as well, in addition to Lean for Administrative Areas. A significant increase in the number of Leadership courses show the importance of providing vision to employees as business practices change. We are offering Strategic Planning, Finances for the Non-Financial Manager, Business Communications/Writing/Presentations and Customer Care Techniques for Employees. These classes apply to manufacturers and to the growing service industry.
Please call us for more information about classes at (661) 362-3245.
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