Ransohoff is a Cincinnati-based manufacturer of industrial parts cleaning systems, high-pressure water deburring systems, and wastewater filtration and treatment systems. The company provides standard machines and custom, engineer and build-to-order machines.
Ransohoff was founded in 1916. Ransohoff began their lean journey in 1998 based on various lean plant tours and basic lean manufacturing training. Its employee strength was 178 and its facility occupies 100,000 square foot area.
One of the first lean tools Ransohoff used was value stream mapping that creates a material and information flow map of a product line or process. A product or process is focused on and followed from raw materials to the finished product stage and delivery to the customer. Value stream mapping enables a company to "see" the entire process in its current state and shows the cycle time involved. It helps to develop a roadmap that prioritizes the projects or tasks that help to reduce the cycle time, inventory, setup changeover times etc.
At Ransohoff, first value stream mapping exercise focused on a specific customer order following it from their sales department where the order was received through final installation of the product at the customer's facility. The exercise took three days and a 15-person cross-functional team was involved. TechSolve, Cincinnati's leading lean manufacturing experts acted as consultants. The value stream mapping exercise showed a total cycle time of 354 days. Of those 354 days, approximately 24% of that time was deemed value added. This exercise identified and then prioritized many areas for improvement.
The decision to implement of cellular teams was taken. The "test" cellular team was made responsible for manufacturing a previously conceived product/market idea. The idea of creating a small industrial parts washer that was right-priced and right-sized to fit into lean manufacturing processes or work cells was undertaken. This gave rise to the birth of the LeanJetTM family of parts cleaning systems.
The first process cellular team was made up of personnel responsible for inside sales, proposal, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, purchasing, project management, and manufacturing.
Based on the success of this process cellular team, the company rolled out a team-based implementation across the company. Today, the company's organizational chart is focused on product lines and not functional areas. The full implementation has been accomplished in two product families with three groups having achieved partial implementation. The company-wide support functions of marketing, finance, human resources, and quality still exist. A group dedicated to continuous improvement called the lean/kaizen office also exists.
The LeanJetTM has become a significant contributor to Ransohoff's success.
Ransohoff has continued to tackle other areas for improvement including a late parts project, stockroom kaizen event, and two "front-office" value stream mapping exercises focusing on the customer information flow and the engineering flow.
The late parts project consisted of the implementation of point-of-use storage in the pipe and pipe fittings area, elimination of requisitions, institution of single job folder tracking form, and improved communication amongst material handlers. This project has resulted in a 30% reduction in late parts and a savings of over $300,000 annually.
Ransohoff has undertaken a week-long stockroom kaizen event with overwhelming results. This event create over 4,300 square feet of productive manufacturing space, led to an increase in revenue, decrease in inventory and scrap. In addition, It also eliminated over 2,351 miles of walking annually, saving $48,000 each year.
In just under 4 years, Ransohoff has been able to implement many lean manufacturing principles and used many lean tools. Still one-piece flow has yet to be achieved and the company in planning for it.
The company's successful lean projects include a single, multiple unit order an 80% improvement in quality and 18% in cost reduction in material was achieved giving a whopping 416% return on investment in the project.
Jim McEachen, President of the company has a message. "I urge you to do something, even if it's wrong - you'll learn from it, and eventually you will get it right!" Document, communicate, and post all savings and milestones reached so that those that are not involved see what you are doing. Apply constant pressure to change for the better- don't let up. And, keep outside consultants involved as long as possible - they help you avoid the pitfalls and see your business from outside your four walls."
Lean (Waste Elimination and Efficiency Improvement) is a journey for every organization. It was started as a movement by F.W. Taylor. You may accomplish much, but much more remains to be done every day and every year.
Source for the Article:
http://www.sae.org/manufacturing/lean/column/leanmar02.htm
Author
Scott K. Buchko is the Sales and Operations Manager at TechSolve. TechSolve is one of the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST MEP) Centers as well as an Ohio Edison Technology Center. It serves manufacturing companies in 23 Southwest Ohio counties through its consulting services, membership program, and training events. For more information, please visit www.techsolve.org. To learn more about Ransohoff, please visit their website at www.ransohoff.com.
