This project had the stated objective of improving the productivity and profitability of a large polyester processing plant located south of Columbia, South Carolina.

The primary area of focus within the plant transformed polyester pellets into polyester fiber. Examples of the eventual use of this fiber include filling for disposable diapers and polyester fabrics and yarns. The overall process involved heating the pellets into a liquid, then extruding the liquid into various deniers of polyester filament. The filaments were then cooled and twisted together, with up to thirty-nine other filaments, to form a length of yarn. This yarn was then joined with a number of comparable lengths of yarn to be later heated and crimped and, if for fabric or disposable diapers, finally chopped into small pieces.

The project was logically divided into three working areas:  Extrusion, Processing, and Support Services (maintenance, waste recovery, and quality control). 

Extrusion

The purpose of the Extrusion area was the conversion of polymer pellets into polyester filaments through a combination of heat and pressure. Each type of filament was assigned a specific lot number. This lot number dictated the melt temperature target to be used and the size of the holes through which the polymer was to be extruded. 

During the course of the project, it became evident that the keys to productivity and profitability of the Extrusion area were as follows: 

• the weight of the polymer pellets fed into the extruders;
• the number of extruders actually operating during each shift and production run;
• the amount of time which the extruders were out of production, individually and in aggregate;
• the temperature in the extruders;
• the proportion of time during which the extruder melt temperature varied from the specified temperature;
• the number of extruder filter changes which were required during each shift; and
• the number of production changes required during the shift.

After leaving the extruders and cooling, the filaments were joined with filaments from the other extruders on the same processing line and inventoried in large metal cans. Once the entire batch of the specific lot number was processed, the batch was transferred to the Processing area.

Processing

The Processing area is responsible for the final conversion of the polyester filaments into polyester fiber.

When each batch was ready for processing, the ends of each cord-like collection of filaments in the cans mentioned above were gathered together. The filaments were washed and heated. While hot, the filaments were crimped to ensure that the polyester fiber adhered to other types of fibers and textiles when they reach the customer. After drying, the fiber for fabric or diaper filling was cut into one-to-two inch pieces and baled.

As the project progressed, the following keys to the productivity and profitability of the Processing area were identified: 

• the temperature at which the fiber was heated prior to crimping;
• the pressure at which the fiber was crimped;
• the amount of downtime experienced by the processing line;
• the speed of the processing line; and
• the quality of the filaments received from the Extrusion area as indicated primarily by the consistency of the melt temperature during the extrusion process. 

Support Services

The two production departments depended on the support areas to provide such services as product quality analysis (post-production acceptance sampling), equipment maintenance, and technical improvements to maintain product quality, productivity, and utilization.

The Quality Services Laboratory was responsible for determining, on a timely basis, whether or not finished goods and their components met quality specifications.

The key indicators in the Lab were the turnaround time of the samples and the same-sample variance.

The Maintenance Department provided equipment maintenance, modifications and repairs to the production departments. Its chief responsibilities were to keep the production equipment running smoothly and to make technical improvements as identified.

The prioritization and timely, accurate completion of assigned work orders were found to be the critical factors in the Maintenance Department’s contribution to Division productivity and profitabili­ty.

 Project Results

The premise under which the project team operated was that a primary cause of sub-optimal productivity and profitability was lack of control. Within the client organization, management felt responsible for continually seeking ways to employ its assets and resources toward the improvement of its products, its methods of production, and the profitability of its business unit. Each of the various layers of management within the organization had different resources available to it yet each had the responsibility for the proper management of those resources.

Given the premise and the degree of responsibility felt by Division management, the project team proceeded to develop tools necessary to enable each layer of management to be more effective in their work. These tools allowed plant supervision and management to not only assign work, check quality, ensure that people and equipment were “moving,” and to report results, but also to plan, organize, and schedule the work and to anticipate, prevent, identify, and reduce the impact of operating problems.

The system of tools developed to achieve this included the following:

•  the ability to correlate operating and quality problems in one department with those in another; and
• the ability to accurately pinpoint specific root causes of operating problems so that they could be systematical­ly eliminated.

Project results included the following: 

• an increase in Extrusion department attainment versus plan from 91% to 97% in less than six months;
• a reduction in Extrusion department unscheduled downtime from 6.5% to 2% in less than six months; and
• a reduction in processing line operating time by over two hundred hours per week despite an increase in average weekly production from 3.8 million pounds to 4.5 million pounds (mostly through reduction in scrap and re-work) in an operating unit that had historically experienced more demand than they could meet.

 The decreased labor was valued in excess of one million dollars annually. The increase in effective capacity was valued at approximately $700,000 weekly in revenue with no increase in raw materials and the reduction in labor.

This project consisted of a four-month review of the telephone installation ac­tivities of a major telecommunications manufacturer and  recommenda­tions for improv­ing the installa­tion process.

Client Overview

The client is a large manufacturer of telephone switch­ing equipment and peripherals head­quartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with regional and field offices throughout the United States. The client manufactures, sells, installs, and services tele­phone equipment from single-line systems through 20,000 line-plus systems. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a multi-national corporation based in Germany with interests primarily in electrical and electronic devices and systems.

The client’s field offices consist of sales, installation, and post-installation service functions. The scope of the engagement included all installation activities associated with a relatively small system which accounts for a significant portion of the client’s annual installation volume. Four locations throughout the United States were selected for observation.

Project Overview

The scope of this effort included the following project activities:

1.         Conduct time studies of installations for the XXXX Model XX. Project staff also observed some activities for Model XX installations to which we were not originally assigned. This allowed us to observe the installa­tion team as they performed their regular activi­ties, includ­ing the potential impact of assignment to multiple installa­tions. It also gave us additional insight into poten­tial variables which drive the cycle time and the amount of labor.

2.         Identify redundant activities and possible lost time hours with detail as to causes or circumstances to provide a basis for corrective action.

3.         Recommend methods and systems improvements which can be implemented quickly and do not involve capital expendi­ture.

4.         Provide long range operating improvements which will require analysis, and may involve changes in operating structure, policy changes, and/or capital investment in the final report.

5.         Summarize time standards information by functional activity.

6.         Submit a final report after the completion of the final installation.

Project Methodology

Throughout each of the four observed installations, project staff was on site, observing each of the in­stallation team members and most of the installa­tion activities. The objective was to document the activities within the installation process and assess not only the time actually spent on each installation but the time that should have been required for those installation. Since no project staff person had prior telephone system experience and since the installations were essentially concurrent, each project staff person was required to, within no more than two weeks, become familiar with industry-specific terminology and with organization culture. As with most projects, this project required close daily interaction between project staff and client staff.

The project’s objective was to develop a model by which future installa­tions could be budgeted and managed and to recommend short-term and long-term changes in processes, systems, tools, and organization structure to improve the overall effectiveness of the field installation function.

To the extent possible, project staff was physically present during observed activities. When such presence was not feasible, logs were kept by client staff to describe the activities and the approximate time spent. As soon thereafter as possible, project staff “de-briefed” the client staff to understand:

•           what was done;

•           why it was done;

•           who did it and why that person rather than somebody else;

•           what problems were encountered; and

•           how it might have been avoided or done differently.

Project Results

1.         Project staff developed a model which consists of both fixed and variable portions and, compared to the client’s traditional task assignments, shifts tasks among the three historic installa­tion-related positions. The model also provides a basis for shifting to two-person or one-person installation “teams” under specific circumstances.

2.         Actual labor used on the observed installations was 30-50% more than that proposed by the model.

3.         Based on actual installation volume for the most recent calendar year, savings for the observed switch model would be in excess of one million dollars, if management manages to the model.

During a three-month operational and management systems improvement project for a major U.S. Western county’s Flood Control and Water Conservation District Planning Division. The Planning Division is responsible for investigating alternative solutions to flood problems; recommending optimum hydrologic and economic plans to the District’s Design Division; preparing master flood control plans; and making all Land Division flood hazard reports to the county Planning Commission and State Commission of Real Estate. The Division also is responsible for collecting hydrologic data within the county.

The project’s charter was to develop and implement a system by which staffing could be related to measurable work volumes, to make relevant recommendations in the areas of work simplification and methods improvement, and to prepare a document or chart which could be used to present to the public a clear picture of the various activities and/or phases of the application process. This charter required that project staff work with Planning Division staff to:

• establish reasonable process time factors for all categories of work performed by engineering staff;
• develop appropriate work assignment and control mechanics and reports required to insure timely completion of assigned tasks;
• establish acceptable backlog levels for all categories of work and develop pertinent reporting; and
• develop appropriate staffing indices to assist management in properly adjusting work force levels to reflect current china business volume.

In keeping with this charter, a system was designed and implemented to formalize the assignment of engineering tasks to the Associate Engineers and Engineering Aides; to control the location and status of the case review process; to report weekly work volumes and relate those volumes to actual and required staffing levels; and to provide weekly aging of backlog to facilitate acceptable backlog levels (no older than three weeks for initial review, one-and-one-half weeks for repeat review items).

Project staff developed a large flow chart, showing milestones, time frames, and appropri­ate detail, and presented it to District management. This document became a focal point during meetings with building industry trade groups in Riverside County.

After reduction of excessive backlog, the work assignment and measurement system was used to document the need for fewer staff during a period of reduced land development activity.

Administrative Division

A review and analysis of the clerical support functions and the administra­tive filing system of the county’s Flood Control and Water Conservation District followed the Planning Division project.

The project began with the identification of the work activities and functions performed by each member of Administration’s clerical staff. The volume of work for each activity was determined through historical data and through logs established for use during the project. Time factors for each activity were established, veri­fied, and agreed upon by the Executive Secretary and by the Chief of the Administrative Division.

When the time factors were applied to the volume data, the re­quired hours to perform each task were determined for use in produc­tivity reporting and in Staffing Guides. Activity Analyses were completed which il­lustrate the Frequen­cy, Time Factors, and Volumes in the Division. Administra­tive Clerical Staffing Guides were developed for the Counter operation, the Optical Disk function and for the Word Processing function.

Despite the pre-project perception that additional staff were needed, analysis showed that not only were additional clerks and an additional supervisor not justifiable based on work volumes but current staff had available capacity equivalent to two staff people.

A centralized filing system was implemented to improve control over use and location of files (due to a perceived lost file crisis). A method was established for transferring all planning documents to a new optical disk storage system.

The project’s charter was to facilitate a task force charged with determin­ing the “best way” for claims information necessary for legal defense of policyholders to be communicated between claims and legal, including whether files should be created. The primary contacts for this engagement were the client’s Assistant Chief Counsel and a Vice President.

Within the scope was what should trigger attorney involvement in a claim, which tasks should be performed, who should perform specific tasks, at which point they should be performed, how much time should be allowed for litigation file make up (if one is to be made), and how the litigation file should be constructed. The analysis involved twenty-three Field Offices and Legal Offices. 

The task force used statistical sampling to determine the frequency of predetermined problems associated with current practices. Task force members observed the work to determine the time required to perform identified necessary tasks. The task force interviewed scores of client employees and representatives of law firms, other insurance companies, and the court system. The task force developed, distribut­ed, and analyzed surveys to establish work force percep­tions. Brainstorming techniques unveiled specific triggering events for employees to use as indicators of the need for or desirability of legal counsel.