Highlights:
- Improved productivity by 30%
- Increased throughput by 25%
The Business Challenges:
Ken James, CEO of James Greenhouse in Colbert, Georgia, and his wife Leah have about 2 acres of plug production under their roof, in the town of Colbert, about 90 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia. Ken has seen his small business grow every year. Being the alert businessman that he is, Ken decided he needed to address not only potential efficiency issues with his growing company but standardization issues as well. He felt that “more standardization now will benefit me in the long run.” It turns out Ken was right. This is where his Lean Flow journey began.
The FlowVision Solution:
Ken’s first step on this journey was to attend a two-day Lean Flow Line Design Workshop conducted by FlowVision. Ken knew, after attending this workshop that he was on the right track with his thoughts on using standardized, efficient work processes. He then contracted with FlowVision to implement Lean Flow throughout his facility. FlowVision sent Senior Consultant Steve Forkey to James Greenhouses to work along with Ken’s Lean Flow team, to address both efficiency and standardization. During the implementation, Ken also recognized he could improve his current planning process.
Implementation:
Starting in the production area, FlowVision worked alongside the Production Manager to determine proper labor resource staffing. This was, of course, based on mathematical calculations established using customer requirements, standard work time, and hours available to do work. By standardizing the work content and implementing a Lean Flow technique called “Progressive Sticking”, FlowVision was able to help James Greenhouses achieve an immediate 30% labor productivity increase.
Once the production area was running smoothly, the Lean Flow team moved on to the sorting and shipping areas. Using the same mathematical calculations used for production, the team was able to balance the labor resources between the appropriate number of workstations in sorting and shipping. The product now flowed more efficiently through these areas, resulting in a 25% productivity increase.
During the process of balancing labor in these departments, FlowVision and the James Lean Flow team documented their new workflows, at the task level. This documentation ensures consistency, standardization, repeatability, workforce flexibility, and ease of new-hire training. All this means James can now sustain their Lean Flow gain. This documentation, such as Standard Operations Worksheets, Multi Product Process Flow Sheets, and Visual Instruction Sheets, are used to not only train and certify the employees but to help management run their respective departments on a daily basis. The ability to sustain all of the hard work put in during the implementation is imperative to the success of Lean Flow. The documentation FlowVision helps the clients obtain greatly assists in achieving this sustainability.
Results:
James Greenhouses started out small but is growing rapidly. Ken’s last year sales were up 56%. This growth could be overwhelming for many operations, but Ken feels that because of his Lean Flow training through FlowVision, and the new processes they helped to put in place, James Greenhouse is well prepared to handle any growth that comes their way.
Leveraging Progressive Sticking has helped James Greenhouses achieve a 30% increase in labor productivity and improvements in product flow have helped improve overall throughput by over 25%.