Continuous Improvement Within Wepco Plastics
Charles Daniels
As a company, we pride ourselves on our dedication to continuous improvement, always striving for progress. Often, we make small, incremental modifications. Sometimes, however, we are able to make much larger changes that have tremendous impact. Changing our mold room from a two 8-hour shift, 5 day per week operation to two 10-hour shifts, 4 days a week was definitely the latter. While an immense amount of successes were derived from this change, these are the most significant:
The first success was really simple. Our employees got an extra day off every week! This afforded them more time with friends and family or for hobbies and errands that may have been a challenge to take part in on weekends. We recognize that time is precious, and it is a pleasure to give our team every moment we can to share with loved ones, or dedicate to whatever they choose. They are happier for it and therefore more valuable to us.
Startups and shutdowns in injection molding can be costly. It is a time of non-valuable labor, inefficient machine use and a waste of material that must be purged. Switching from 16.5 to 19.5 hours of operating time per day increases daily production capacity by over 18%, even though there are actually less hours of operation each week. This has translated into a dramatic savings in material cost and on-time delivery.
Amazingly, although actual production has increased, operating one less day per week has yielded a 4% savings in energy costs. Several things contribute to this, but similar to the waste experienced with material, the majority of savings are due to 20% fewer days of startups and shutdowns. Repairs, maintenance and lean enhancements have also become much easier to execute, as they can now easily be scheduled around production.
This move served first as an experiment. Since all important metrics including safety, on-time delivery, revenue, employee engagement and quality have either improved or held even, we have deemed it a success. In the future, we hope to find more methods to improve through schedule optimization. This could potentially mean compressing the schedule in alternative fashions or finding other creative ways to operate. In striving for progress and continuous improvement, we are able to embrace tremendous, effective change. https://wepcoplastics.com/contact-us/