Nearly a year and a half ago, Hohman Plating began the journey of Lean Manufacturing. In that time, we have made significant changes that have improved productivity.

We started with 5S, and focused on providing a safer and more organized workplace for our employees. 5S is sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. Next, we delegated our value-added versus non-valued added time, to work more efficiently.

We used this information to create our future vision, and began efforts to improve the flow of customer’s products through our shop. The concepts of Kaizen, Cellular manufacturing, FIFO, continuous flow and Managing Daily Improvements (MDI) were launched and are taking hold. Teams gather daily at our Mission Control boards to review the metrics of the prior day’s performance and identify potential obstacles for the current day.

What has all this produced?

• A lot of change!!
• 68 Kaizens ranging from a half-day blitz to full week events depending on the complexity of the needed improvement (involving the direct participation of 92 of our 150 employees)
• The clearing of 5,000 Sq. Ft for useable production space
• 30% reduction in Lead Times
• A library of Single Point Lessons used for training
• A vehicle for employees to use to drive project completion
• Standardization goals and metrics driving corporate strategy