DW: This was a large-scale implementation? SW: Huge. The plant covered half of Tennessee, it seemed like, way out in
the middle of nowhere. So we put a small team together. It was me and
another guy and about half a dozen folks at the site, and we went through the
exact same training I had done the first time at Ohmart/Vega. Was exactly the
same concept, exactly the same ideas. The only thing different was the
context. We had software systems we had to integrate—five different
software systems that had the data in it we needed. We identified the
constraint, and did all the usual things, like making sure there was a buffer in
front of it, making sure the maintenance guys were giving it top priority so if
there’s any trouble they could fix things right away. We put a quality check
in front of it so that we weren’t wasting time processing any bad electrodes at
that point in the process.
DW: What was the upshot? SW: No change whatsoever in on-time delivery. The company already had an
excellent record in that regard and by the time we had finished, it still had an
excellent record. But the only reason they could deliver on time before was
because they had more inventory than they really needed. They just stuffed
the shelves full of electrodes, had them sitting all over the place. So you see,
we didn’t disrupt their delivery performance at all, they continued to deliver
100% on-time. But in the end they did it with about 40% less inventory. And
they were very satisfied with that because that essentially freed up almost $20
million that they could now use elsewhere to run their business. Based on
those results, the CEO stood up at a big meeting one day and said that this is
what we’re going to do worldwide. We brought representatives from Spain,
Brazil, Italy and South Africa to Clarksville as part of a worldwide
implementation team. It’s become a classic case of phenomenal improvement
and a very satisfied client.
