By Jennifer M. Marangos
These days everyone at Reading Powder Coatings is focused on getting and staying lean, but their efforts have nothing to do with counting carbs or feeling the burn.
Instead of trying to build better bodies, the Reading-based company’s 40 employees — from those in the corner offices right on through the ranks to the factory floor are working to build a more streamlined organization, applying the principles of lean manufacturing to virtually every aspect of the business.
According to Markus Lattner, vice president of operations, the spark for Reading Powder Coatings’ journey toward lean came from some seminars given by The Manufacturers Association. It all began, Lattner says, when one of his colleagues attended a Manufacturers Association course delivered by, instructor, Dwight Bowen.
“There was this course The Manufacturers Association was doing with Dwight Bowen and it sounded interesting to me, Lattner explains. “I sent one of my associates to look at that and he came back with a lot of new ideas. I thought this was a good way to improve our productivity
“I joined another course on lean at The Manufacturers Association taught by Bowen that was held a few weeks later and that’s how we got involved with lean manufacturing, he says.
From there, Lattner says, his company brought The Manufacturers Association in to help them to analyze their current operation and create a value stream map of the processes used to manufacture their product powdered industrial paint. That was in November of 2003.
“Then, under the Dwight’s guidance, we came up with new future state value stream map, Lattner says. “And it was quite interesting to find out things about our process that we hadn’t even looked at before. To find out all the different wastes’ that we create that are underneath the surface of things.
“The initial value stream map we did was not totally in detail, he adds. “It was kind of like we were flying over at 10,000 feet and looking at what was happening. The information was not in detail but it was close enough for what we wanted to accomplish. It opened our eyes. It is very interesting to see what has come out of it.
What has come out of it is a series of tasks designed to help Reading Powder Coatings become a leaner’ organization, according to Bowen, who has been working with Reading Powder Coatings since November 2003 and The Manufacturers Association for more than four years.
One area that Reading Powder Coatings has already worked on, Bowen says, is the issue of “disconnected departments along the manufacturing line in which Department A must process and feed material to Department B in order for Department B to do its job..
“Within the organization, front end of the operation is Drylac and the secondary step of the product is Metallic. Drylac feeds Metallic and if Drylac doesn’t give Metallic the right stuff, Metallic can’t make it, Bowen explains. “It sounds simple but it wasn’t. We really worked on the coordination of the two departments, so now they are on a Kanban/Pull system.
“I like to call that a supermarket system, like when you go to a Wa-Wa and they have the gravity-fed container with cartons of milk. You pull one out and there is a empty spot. That informs the supplier that they need to fill the empty slot. It is a visual cue, he says.
Another change that The Manufacturers Association helped Lattner and his team to implement was the creation of a point-of-use storage system within the plant.
“We found that their plant isn’t all that big, Bowen says, “but the product traveled almost a mile before it got into the finished goods warehouse. That is a whole lot of waste, with people walking around looking for stuff.
Point-of-use storage implies that you have what you need near by, he says. “That has been very successful.”
Lattner says that the work Reading Powder Coatings has done with The Manufacturers Association so far has helped the company already, but acknowledges that there is still more to be done. “It is always ongoing, he says. “You are always looking at it again. The first step was completed.
Bowen, who has been helping companies to become leaner for more than a decade, agrees.“Typically implementing Lean rapidly reduces thru-put time significantly and inventories by one third or more but it takes five to 10 and maybe even 15 years to fully implement a Lean Manufacturing system, he says. It is a cultural change.
Bowen says that at this point Reading Powder Coatings has the next stage of its lean journey planned, with new projects on the agenda that should take the company well into 2004. “By doing these, he says, “they will be immensely more competitive. Costs will go down and morale will go up. Lean is the disciplined application of common sense, that’s the way I look at it.
Overall, Lattner is pleased with the progress his company has made.
“This is definitely a logical, common sense way of running a business, Lattner says. “I think businesses have to change to do things this way because otherwise they won’t be able to survive in today’s economy. When you think about how many manufacturing jobs are leaving the United States, it is going to be tough to compete with overseas products and I am sure this is one way to accomplish being competitive in the global market.
