Most facilities were not designed around optimizing the flow of processes through the facility. Often facilities are laid out by functional groups, cost centers, or products. Because of this companies are forced to operate with significant built-in inefficiencies that both reduce capacity and create large amounts of waste. Using a patented, math-based approach to Lean Flow, FlowVision helps clients quickly identify and address areas of significant waste within all operating processes.
Facility Design
Lean Facility Design
What We Typically Deliver
We have found that typical clients experience an 80% reduction in lead times while seeing fill rates increase to greater than 95%. Additionally, clients see significant decreases in inventory across raw materials, work-in-process, and finished goods which contribute to a 2-4x improvement in inventory turns while improving operating cash flow and working capital. The focus on in-process quality checks is fundamental to Lean Flow and can drive overall quality improvements of 10-30%. All of these improvements typically lead to a 20-30% increase in productivity.
Business Assessment
Every facility design begins with a custom business assessment. We use this process to baseline current performance and prioritize opportunities for improvement based on the ease of implementation and the biggest financial impact. We work to understand your specific business; you are experts in your businesses and markets. FlowVision’s role is to help implement Lean Flow Processes into your business. We determine an expected ROI for each project so that clients have clear concrete expectations of the financial impact.
Education First Approach
FlowVision takes an education-first approach to implementing Lean Flow Methodologies across your organization. We have found for changes and improvements to be sustainable, it is imperative that all employees understand how those concepts affect and change the current process. Once educated, the team are engaged from day one, and can effectively participate throughout the different stages of the line design process.
Educational Workshops
- Define lean factories
- How to design lean factories – The math
- How to flow products in a labor environment
- How to flow products in a machine environment
- Mixed model flow lines
- How material management works
- Managing in a lean environment
- Continuous improvement
End-to-End Lean Flow Using Math and Science
FlowVision uses a proven, time-tested, math-based approach to implementing Lean Flow throughout a facility, which include implementing material and in-process Kanban techniques, takt time targets, line-balancing, calculating resource requirements and understanding service levels. Alternatively, most other lean consultants will focus on improving various processes on an individual basis (often known as kaizen events). FlowVision, on the other hand, uses a holistic approach, focusing on the entire process and thus making sure that all improvements are linked together to ensure significant improvements in lead time, capacity and quality.
FlowVision Facility Design Process
- Create process maps
- Develop standard operation worksheets
- Define product/process matrices
- Capture recoverable yield, unrecoverable yield and options
- Create multi-product process flow charts
- Calculate takt, weighted standard time, and resource requirements
- Review actual requirements vs. design capacity
- Create a block diagram
- Design all processes to eliminate or reduce wait time and to operate at the designed capacity
- Develop standard operations and design quality checks into the process
- Create the facility layout
- Size IPK’s
- Linked manufacturing processes to ensure flow – (machine or labor environment)
Enabling Continuous Improvement
While it is important to understand that implementing Lean Flow throughout a facility and organization is a continuous process, part of our deliverable is to provide our customers with a road map for further improvement. Often, customers can significantly improve their ability to manage inventory by using our patented Statistical Kanban® tool, ION. We know that your business is constantly changing – there are new product releases, changes in customer demand and new equipment requirements. Our goal is to make sure that your employees have the knowledge to implement our Lean Flow Principles and be able to apply these as your business continues to change and grow.