Content Expertise Maintenance Management Manufacturing Planning Cellular Manufacturing Lean Manufacturing Six Sigma Transactional Lean / Six Sigma Business Process & IT Alignment Plant Consolidations and Relocations Factory-In-Space Sourcing Strategies / Make vs. Buy Supply Chain Optimization Project Management Design for Manufacturing and Assembly Flow Manufacturing Shop Floor Control Simulation Asset Evaluations Mergers & Acquisitions Maintenance Management This collection of tools and approaches focuses on one of the most critical support functions in the ongoing survival of any organization that is producing a product or providing a service. Our capabilities include a wide range of tools and techniques including Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), work order system design and implementation, Predictive and Preventive Maintenance (PDM/PM) program implementation, conducting maintenance audits, and MRP stores process design and implementation. Implementation Services has been successful in adding value to any manufacturing assignment by incorporating the critical element of maintenance management into the new operational strategy. A critical factor in this success has been the ability to create a well-defined understanding of why the maintenance function is such an integral factor to the longevity of the new strategy. We have found that organizations that have deployed or are deploying a change in manufacturing or service strategy pay minimal attention to ensuring the maintenance function is prepared to support the new strategy. Superior up-time performance is your organization�s driving force in keeping schedule attainment at its highest levels. Back to top Manufacturing Planning Despite all the efforts expended on developing overall vision and market strategy in today�s boardrooms, manufacturing planning frequently remains a series of tactics deployed in reaction to the incoming order rate and problems du jour. Decision makers are often reluctant to abandon past investments in assets. It�s true that the fastest, least expensive method of getting to production is to tweak what�s already on the floor. However, this is usually incremental change instead of step change. In addition, rapidly changing market conditions can mean that a current set of products, services, competencies, technologies, and facilities are unsuitable for meeting changes in customer expectations. We have found that markets change faster than products, products change faster than equipment, equipment changes faster than factories, and factories change faster than people. Properly aligning manufacturing resources with a company's overall business goals and objectives can mean the difference between success and failure in today�s competitive environment. Manufacturing planning is most effective when it is integral to a business' strategic management process rather than a one-off exercise. It must be focused on achieving measurable results like earnings, ROIC, ROA, etc. In addition to this important linkage of strategies, involving all parts of the organization ensures that everyone understands customer requirements in time to deliver them. Back to top Cellular Manufacturing When the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) wanted to publish an authoritative guide to cellular manufacturing, they came to the experts, Implementation Services (formerly Bourton Group), to author it. Having implemented over 2,000 cell installations worldwide, Implementation Services has the specialists to handle every phase of cell design and implementation. Our book (written as Bourton Group), Making Manufacturing Cells Work, is a practical guide to matching your objectives to the appropriate cell implementation approach. Why is cellularization important? The piecemeal expansion of many U.S. manufacturing businesses resulted in factories with haphazard flows of parts and information. Today, the managers of many U.S. manufacturing businesses are asking themselves, "What strategy is appropriate for our company, given that we want to compete in international markets?" Implementing cell technology, a low-tech solution, can result in the stability necessary for international competition, and is one important change that will help companies become more competitive and profitable than ever. What is a cell? In the most simplistic of descriptions, cellularization involves the close linking of work steps in a process. For example, if there are 20 work steps involved in completing a piece of work (that is, "work" involved in making a product in the shop or work involved in processing paper in the office), "linking" involves placing the people and the machines they use next to each other in a work cell. Traditional practice, on the other hand, would have those 20 work steps accomplished in different functional departments spread throughout a business. So, work cells imply sacrificing function for efficient work accomplishment. Lean Manufacturing Our process is an integrated, structured approach that dramatically reduces lean manufacturing implementation time while increasing benefits. Whether your organization is just beginning its lean journey or is well on its way to becoming world-class, we can help optimize your lean strategy and deployment. Continuous improvement becomes a �way of life.� Back to top Six Sigma The emphasis of Six Sigma is on eliminating a problem through rigorous process definition, metric development and measurement, process capability studies, root cause analysis, and installation of process improvements. Our team of practitioners, including several certified Master Black Belts, will accelerate your organization�s performance by applying the tools of Six Sigma and equipping your people with the knowledge they need to lead the way. Transactional Lean / Six Sigma Transactional Lean & Six Sigma is the application of Lean and Six Sigma techniques to non-manufacturing areas or entire organizations. Transactional Lean & Six Sigma is not a direct translation of production methods to office or service environments. Rather, it is the evolution of the best practices of lean operations, kaizen methods, Six Sigma problem solving and process controls (DMAIC), and reengineering approaches into a systematic, repeatable methodology for achieving excellence in non-manufacturing areas. Back to top Business Process & IT Alignment The very fabric of modern business is progressively becoming IT based. The transfer, analysis of, and response to information concerning schedules, parts, services, products, orders, plans, payments, and customer service are inextricably woven through every business and IT process at the molecular level. IT strategy must be an integral, seamless part of a business strategy. However, technology does not solve problems. People and processes do. In our high-tech world, it is tempting and convenient to view technology as a "silver bullet" that can quickly solve problems. Regrettably, things are rarely so easy. Organizations spend millions and compromise their future effectiveness by throwing technology at poorly defined issues. A world-class IT strategy plan and implementation model demands the prior establishment and operation of an integrated business/IT plan. IT implementation teams must be compelled to identify the problems clearly before they install solutions. Implementation Services� proven approach helps organizations identify problems and the appropriate IT tools to address them, and then optimizes and aligns business processes to the new tools. Back to top Plant Consolidations and Relocations When you look at ROIC or RONA for each of your facilities, do you find one or more that are not creating value for your firm, but are actually destroying value? This can happen for any number of reasons � a shift in the market, the introduction of a new competitor, the restructuring of a major customer, etc. The rationalization and subsequent consolidation or relocation of value-destroying facilities can be caused by a shift in the market, the introduction of a major new competitor, or the restructuring of a major customer, among other things. There are seven elements in the Implementation Services process to address the need to respond to these types of issues: Business objectives and rationalization goal understanding Initial planning and discovery process Business case development and financial decomposition Plant visits Scenario development and evaluation Implementation planning Implementation During implementation, Implementation Services uses a proven methodology that gets plants up and running as soon as possible without causing any disruption or production losses. Back to top Factory-In-Space The perfect factory has yet to be created, but the techniques and methodologies Implementation Services uses get closer to perfection than any other approach. The foundations for our expertise lies in our history of being change agents who are focused on the area where most of the costs are and where most of the value is added � the shop floor. The overarching technique we use to move toward the ideal manufacturing environment is what we call the �Factory in Space� (FIS). This is not as idealistic as it sounds. If you want to have the best possible factory design, you�ll want vision combined with best practices overlaid with reality. Our FIS designs do precisely this. We�ve found that when we compare the �perfect� factory or cell to in-house designs, benefits such as productivity, lower inventories, and quality get watered down. This is not because in-house factory planners are not proficient. Rather, they are frequently constrained by self-imposed culture and political considerations that cause them to stop short of maximum benefits. Back to top Sourcing Strategies / Make vs. Buy Sourcing is critical to on-time delivery performance, yet supply chain management practices that are largely reactive and cannot respond to changing demand manifest a chronic lack of delivery-to-promise, heavy expediting, and constant material shortages. Timely material availability is critical to order fulfillment and requires good supplier management techniques, such as Joint Service Agreements (JSA), long-term purchase orders, and consumption-based inventory replenishment techniques with key suppliers. Implementation Services helps companies set up the Joint Service Agreements so critical to their supplier relationships. JSA cover the logistical arrangements agreed to by the client and the supplier to ensure reliable, mutually beneficial business interaction. In the recent past, many manufacturing firms were highly vertically integrated by choice. There was a strong reluctance to have outsiders produce all but those products that were clearly commodities. The justification for making the investment to equip for vertical integration was often non-financial, couched in such terms, �Our customers expect us to produce everything we sell.� Or "The quality of what we produce, commodity or not, is much higher than anything we can buy." Or "We need to have control over the processes, and making it gives us that control." The dramatic changes in demand in many markets left firms with high investments in idle capital equipment; the often terrible return on assets employed caused these firms to rethink their integration strategy. Many of our clients found that they could purchase hardware much more cost effectively than to produce it, especially when production meant a significant commitment in capital, and when other specialists could leverage their production technology with higher quantities to be produced. However, it�s not that easy. There are both commercial and emotional challenges to become a buyer of components rather than a producer. Often a firm lacks both the supplier database and the staff to find suppliers. Often too, the decision of what to buy and what to make is based on prejudice and emotion rather than hard financial and technological facts. Helping clients through these complications has become a significant part of our practice. Back to top Supply Chain Optimization Supply chain optimization goes far beyond manufacturing. It is a competitive differentiator that can contribute to your company�s profitability or demise. Supply chain management is one of the single most important profitability levers which impacts gross margin, cash flow, cash generation, and growth. Traditionally, the supply chain has been viewed as segmented back room activities where functional conflicts lead to tied up working capital, excessive fixed costs, production shut-down risk, and on-time delivery problems. Success requires a continuous improvement paradigm that views the supply chain organization as one of the most critical contributors to the company�s financial viability. Implementation Services and our network of strategic alliances have a set of proven methodologies to significantly improve the performance of your company�s profitability through supply chain optimization. Historically, intercompany relationships consisted of a one-way, sequential flow of material and information. Today, collaboration and information sharing between suppliers and customers is paramount for the agility required to offer the right product, in the right quantity, at the right time, profitably. Implementation Services can enable your company to reduce material costs, minimize fix costs, and optimize variable costs by implementing concepts such as e-commerce, Joint Service Agreements, Vendor Managed Inventory, Kanban Fulfillment, Free Trade Zone Warehouses, and Third Party Logistics Management Agreements, as well as develop streamlined Material Cost Take Out (MCTO) processes. In the competitive global marketplace your product needs to be first, best, or different. Optimizing your supply chain will enable your new product launches to happen ahead of schedule and profitably. In time all new technologies become commodities and to maintain a competitive price and profit margin you must be able to turn your supply chain into a cash machine reducing landed costs, optimizing investment dollars, pulling in receivables, and stringing out payables. Supply chain collaboration between suppliers and customers is a must in optimizing product delivery cost. Our innovative capabilities will help you differentiate your delivery service to your customers to increase your value. Implementation Services will make your supply chain generate cash, improve cash flow, and contribute to company growth. Back to top Project Management The value of a decisive and consistent process for executing improvement projects is hardly new news, but its powerful correlation with business growth is. Industry data shows that across all industries, the companies with a dependable and repeatable process for successfully completing projects on time, within budget, and meeting identified project objectives grow at several times the rate of those without such a process. While basic competency in project management in no way ensures a company's competitive success, the lack of that elementary competency all but ensures its failure. We have helped hundreds of companies learn and apply project management practices that include the following key elements of project management success: Project prioritization and selection Project leadership Measuring results Team building/personal development Problem analysis/solving Task/work stream definition Schedule development/adherence Budget administration/cost tracking Quality of deliverables Communications/feedback Back to top Design for Manufacturing and Assembly Designers in smaller companies as well as veteran designers in larger firms intuitively know which production resources are best suited to the products they design. This comes from experience and being closely involved with both design and manufacture and is usually the result of much trial and error. Unfortunately, trial-and-error is both costly and time consuming, neither of which is acceptable for today�s manufacturers or their markets. Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) is a technique used by many of today�s world-class companies to combat these issues. DFMA is a tool that resolves many of the issues associated with traditional product design/development. It is used to provide product design teams with the information needed to make better decisions during the design process. What makes the DFMA approach different is that it uses both statistical information and best practices information from the shop floor to drive best design practices. DFMA is a highly data-driven business tool using such techniques as process capability studies and capacity analysis to influence product design. In more complex manufacturing environments, it also includes a vehicle for capturing, documenting, and presenting best practices as well as those to be avoided. Back to top Flow Manufacturing It would take a historian to know how it all began, but Frederick W. Taylor�s philosophy of scientific management may have, more or less, led to the idea of arranging factories by function. All the lathes went with the lathes, the milling machines with the other milling machines, and so on. As industrial engineers and frustrated general managers sought something more manageable (and management consultants got hungrier), the idea of lining resources up in their sequence of use arose as the solution: "flow" manufacturing, wherein a product passed directly from the first operation onto the second, and finally to completion. No stopping, no inventorying, and no scheduling � since all you had to do is start work and the product continued through the process without interference. The next step is to move to a "system," in which product flows from one process to another automatically, on some type of powered conveyor. And everything works beautifully, if your company makes only one product, but very few factories do. So how do you handle diverse products using the resources wholly in or in part, or in different sequences? The answer often requires some combination of flow and systems. In essence, there is no cookbook answer, despite what you may have heard. What is right for one company will be wrong for someone else. Is it mostly common sense? Sure it is, but that�s not so easy either. It might be a good idea to have a dispassionate second opinion from someone not selling software or cookbooks. Back to top Shop Floor Control Shop floor control is an amalgamation of systems that communicate information relevant to the execution of a production plan. Its sole purpose is to provide the information necessary so that people can make the best decisions that will allow their organization to ship product to the customer in the quickest most efficient way possible. (Quite often, efficient is synonymous with the minimum amount of inventory possible.) Shop floor control is a decision-support scheme tailored to a highly variable production environment. Situations on a production floor are continually changing, and shop floor control provides the data needed for quick reaction and prioritization. In short, it supplies the information needed to answer the question: What do I have to make next? The methods employed to control a shop floor span a range from computer-assisted data acquisition and information dissemination systems to those that are totally manual. A blending of various techniques is needed. Even within one particular shop, the blending of methods can, and most likely should, vary from area to area. Back to top Simulation In today�s manufacturing world, the dynamics are changing with great speed and, simultaneously, causing confusion as to the best way to react. One facility may be going through a downsizing; an expansion; and yet another, a change in product mix. At the same time, managers are looking for ways to improve productivity and material flow. Questions arise as to which factory resources (equipment, space, labor, etc.) are best for the business. Getting everyone to agree can be a major undertaking. Even after long, drawn out analyses, there will still probably be a lack of agreement, making it nearly impossible to effect change. There is a technique that significantly speeds up this process and objectively approaches a manufacturing situation by analyzing the variables and their interactions, leading to an optimal solution. The technique is simulation modeling and it allows everyone involved to agree on hard data as well as possible operating alternatives. Simulation output clearly shows the impact of each alternative. It can even lead to alternatives that were not originally considered. In the end, simulation will point to the model with the best solution; management gains the confidence to objectively endorse an operational view; and everyone involved understands why that endorsement was made. Back to top Asset Evaluations A few years ago, Implementation Services observed the wildly fluctuating markets in which most firms were operating and concluded that there was a compelling need for �agility,� that is, a firm�s ability to adapt its �people structure� to wide variations in products and product demand levels. This new perspective led some early advocates to proclaim that this kind of �agility� was the answer, and that the people in a firm could be sufficiently realigned to deal with change. In today�s volatile markets, agility is not about staffing � it�s about asset utilization. In the real world, staffing isn�t the whole answer, and may not even be the most important factor. Staff organization alone can�t enable a firm to cope with the market swings they are faced with today. A firm forfeits some degree of agility the moment it acquires its first piece of capital equipment. As the factory grows and more capital assets are added, agility shrinks directly and even exponentially, regardless of the staff�s ability to react to change. Ultimately, a firm�s asset base defines and limits the product types manufactured, the economic level of production, and the degree of available responsiveness � the level of real �agility� that is possible. Back to top Mergers & Acquisitions Mergers & Acquisitions have become an increasingly important means of reallocation of resources in the global economy and for executing corporate strategies. Unfortunately, many corporate acquisitions fail to increase shareholder value. In order to achieve this end goal and exceed shareholder expectations, there is a significant amount of planning and preparation that must go into a successful merger or acquisition. Our proven tools and methodologies assist in navigating through this process as quickly and effectively as possible. Once all the planning and analysis is completed, Implementation Services plays an active role in implementing the required changes. After emerging from a rigorous due diligence and legal process, businesses that are merging or have acquired other companies are faced with the demanding task of making the new venture work. Whatever the rational for merging, be it extending the market scope; gaining new products, technology, or customers; or realizing the benefits of cost rationalization, it is unusual for the businesses to continue without change after the merger. However, gaining the benefits of being bigger while retaining the various core competencies and competitive advantages of the individual businesses requires greater change management skills than implementing step change in a single business. Before embarking on the change program, it is vital to understand and review the similarities and differences between the business processes in each organization. Implementation Services has a breadth of experience in assessing these issues to establish the required level of process integration and performance, compare the ways of working, and assess the appropriateness of systems. Back to top