Manufacturing
Stanley Black & DeckerEmbedding Continuous Process Improvement and Culture Change
STANLEY Engineered Fastening
Background
STANLEY Engineered Fastening, a Stanley Black & Decker Inc. Company, develops fasteners that uniquely resolve assembly issues providing an extremely cost-effective tooling and installation process. There is virtually no industry in which a STANLEY Engineered Fastening product or installation tool or system is not used.
The Challenge
Formerly known as Infastech, the company was acquired by the Stanley Black & Decker group in February 2013 and merged with Emhart Teknologies to form the Stanley Engineered Fastening group (SEF). The acquisition provided some huge opportunities to drive growth within existing and new markets, thereby expanding production operations at the Warrington site.
The need to increase capacity at Warrington without a corresponding increase in cost acted as the catalyst for SEF to work with CQM Training & Consultancy Ltd. There was a keen interest to build on existing Lean capabilities and to permanently change behaviours by developing sustainability and self- sufficiency in Continuous Improvement.
To build on some considerable improvements in headline KPIs relating to costs of quality, on time delivery and customer concerns, CQM T&C were tasked with helping embed deep rooted behavioural change.
The Solution
CQM T&C’s expert Lean consultants worked closely with the Senior Team at Stanley Engineered Fastening to select specific areas for improvement and generate an understanding of the commitment needed to sustain the improvements delivered.
Creating and delivering a practical programme of intervention, CQM T&C worked extensively with the Team Leaders on site to ensure they had a sound understanding of the tools and techniques of delivering improvements. Implementing these techniques in their daily operations ensured these skills became second nature. Specific focus was also given to driving and embedding behavioural change to lock in improvements and savings through measurement, visualisation and standardisation.
Stanley Engineered Fastening have already identified teams going forwards who will be responsible for implementing these changes and improvements across more lines to further capitalise on the substantial savings that have already been made.
“The training from CQM Training & Consultancy will support future Lean project work where our teams will apply the learning to achieve further benefits and improvements within the business processes. CQM T&C’s training provides students with a good understanding of Lean principles whilst developing students academically. We intend to build on the training by implementing Lean teams of students in 2016 for task orientated projects that will deliver benefit to the business ultimately impacting on the bottom line.
CQM T&C’s training has identified numerous improvements that hold both financial and efficiency benefits, we have completed and validated several of these projects using our existing A5 and A3 Lean tools.”
Recognition of Success
- Standardised procedure now in place to complete effective changeovers, significantly reducing time taken and their attributed costs halved
- Increase in capacity by approx. 1million components per year
- Efficiency and effectiveness increases PPLH (parts per labour hour) measure, increased by 15%
- Reduction in waste, 30% reduction across all forming cells
- Increase in yield to finished goods meets customer orders achieving 85% OTIF targets
- Overdue order reduction based on yield increase post project up 15%
- Tooling cost reduction resulting in reduction of fixed costs, saving £7,000 per annum
- Improved customer satisfaction due reduction in manufacture of poor quality components
"Stanley Engineered Fastening have embraced this development programme to help systemise and professionalise their CI culture. The senior leadership on site have worked collaboratively with CQM T&C to drive ongoing improvement"
Andy Cheshire
Managing Director
CQM Training & Consultancy