the plant would allow for quick replenishment of damaged jigs or
changes to existing equipment.
They next described their accomplishment in the area of one-piece
flow. The group knew this was the ideal in lean manufacturing, based
on an internal Acme workshop they had attended, and believed that
Yoshina would therefore approve of their approach. The team was
even prouder to report that due to the final machining cut, the initial
one piece would become two individual finished pistons downstream
in the process. Therefore, the line would enjoy enhanced productivity
numbers, since handling one piece upstream meant two pieces of
finished product downstream.
They then moved on to discuss the work flow in their cell. Everyone
knew that the machine from Vendor 2 was about 66 percent faster
than the machine from Vendor 5. Instead of waiting for a challenging
question from Yoshina with regard to operator balance, the team
anticipated the query and presented a chute concept that would be
installed on several of the machines to hold a dozen pieces of work in
process. Since the Vendor 2 machine was faster, it would be manually
loaded and unloaded by an operator. On the other hand, due to the
slower cycle time of Vendor 5, an automatic load/unload option had
been purchased for that machine. In this way, it was calculated that
the additional time the human operator took to load and unload parts
from the Vendor 2 machine would offset its faster cycle time, thus
bringing it into rhythm with the Vendor 5 machine. To complete the
system, the dozen pieces of work in process would act as a buffer,
just in case the automatic load/unload mechanism and the manual
load/unload operator got out of sync with one another.
As for how the tool actually hit the metal, the X10 team decided to
clamp the piece of metal to be machined in place, then move the
tooling up and down above the piece in order to machine it. Coolant
would be sprayed over the workpiece, and the plant’s first implemen-
tation of standardized work would require operators to remove the chip
build-up from the fixtures and tooling every hour.
These decisions enabled the new X10 module to fit into an unusually
shaped space on the manufacturing floor, next to the two other X10
cells (Figure 20-3). Achieving this co-location goal was projected to
save the material handlers supplying the line over 200 hours annually.
The X10 team also reaffirmed the decision of previous X10 teams to
keep the two metal-coating processes at an outside vendor, though
their quality had taken a turn for the worse. This would increase work
in process levels by 15 percent, but they would not have to invest in
the $95,000 equipment and associated training.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 443