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Get Your Assembly Equipment For Free: How To Propose a Winning Capital
The heat is on!! The direction is set for us in the U.S. Global competition is driving U.S. manufacturing to fiercely compete. Gone are the days when we can sit back and “crank out” thousands or millions of products per month just to make the budget hours. Lead times have shrunk. In most industries today, customers are demanding 1-2 day deliver- ies for standard products, just-in-time replenishment, top quality, and reliable delivery promises. As an example, a recent survey we conducted of the NEMA electrical enclosures market revealed that customers are demanding 1-2 day deliveries from stock. Customers are also demanding high levels of reliability to the extent of 95-98% on-time- customer-delivery performance. In addition, markets are demanding improved service, both in the up-front order cycle, but also with post delivery service and after-market field support. With more and more companies adopting Six-Sigma strategies, top quality is a given. You can no longer get away with 10-15% defect rate. To top it off, they want bet- ter pricing, because they, too, are undergoing intense competition.
But that's not all. The new emphasis more and more is now on specialization, or as we refer to it, “customerization.” Not only do they want products with high quality and short delivery, they also want some changes to a standard product. It could be a wiring har- ness knock-out slot 2” to the left of your standard slot located on your standard drawing. It could be a different PCB in a sub-assembly for a control motor drive assembly. It could be fire insulation in the chassis of an off-road tractor. So companies are faced with meeting the demands of the market by finding new ways to accommodate customers.
To increase productivity and competitiveness, many companies in the continental U.S. have adopted Lean and Continuous Improvement philosophies and have incurred pro- ductivity gains through use of 5S's and Kaizen events. They typically start by engaging in the “Lean Learning” process by hiring training firms to train in Lean philosophy. This usually leads to facilitation of Kaizen events where employees get their hands on exam- ining their own work and challenging current methods to increase productivity. Unfortunately, these approaches by themselves can produce rather superficial results. The rea son is they only “pick the low hanging fruits.” But there is a point that is reached that in order to make substantial gains in productivity and performance, new equipment is needed for various reasons such as faster cycle times and increased capacity: automatic tool changers, automated pallet changers, flexible machining centers, scalable assembly modules, robotic sub-assembly soldering, robotic welders, lasers to replace turrets, and quick changeover tooling or fixturing. So then we are faced with the annual capital budget ritual and “Dancing with the Stars” contest for a piece of the corporate capital pie.
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