Lean Manufacturing in Steel Companies

Steel companies have caught up with the fever and are trying to implement lean manufacturing in their operations. Lean manufacturing of steel is a production process that seeks to eliminate waste in all steel production phases with the end purpose of satisfying the customer.

Results of a successful implementation of lean manufacturing of steel are monumental: huge reductions in production cost and inventory and cycle times, large gains in quality, and evident improvements in delivery reliability.

Traditional approaches to implement basic lean manufacturing in companies involve :

(a) a top-down rolling out of concepts

(b) installing and following goal-curves across management levels, meaning departmental goals must be in sync with each other and people are held accountable to meeting their targets

(c) doing the easy tasks first and gaining momentum from small successful results

(d) interactive education and creating at atmosphere that welcomes taking risks and

(e) initiating a pilot project before wide scale implementation.

Although very worthwhile, lean manufacturing is a very complicated process by itself. Lean manufacturing of steel even creates unique problems.

Steel parts that carry loads like automotive trains, jet engines, industrial bearings and metal-forming machinery are produced in a time-consuming multi-step process that involves a lot of grinding and polishing.

Steel parts are first molded out of metal that is relatively soft and then hardened by being subjected to high heat and quickly cooled in a liquid, or “quenched.” After this, steel parts still require precision finishing processes to produce ultra-smooth surfaces that reduce friction and wear

In steel production, equipments are often physically huge that rearrangement of these to reduce unnecessary human and machine movements may be unrealistic. Some processes in manufacturing of steel must be performed in large batches.

Because of the size of the products made, cycle time is often longer than in other manufacturing businesses. Metallurgical constraints limit the aggressive acceleration of heat-up and cool-down cycles.

Difficult equipment set-up increase production time, effort, yield loss and equipment deterioration. Protective inventories are necessary to avoid costly “out of metal” conditions during bottleneck operations and cannot be avoided.Traditional “kanban” or “signal controls are not suitable because some mills have a variety of routings and passes on the same equipment.

Also, unions and uncooperative labor relations make empowerment of employees and team building difficult to establish.

Despite these drawbacks, there have been success stories of lean manufacturing of steel.

In order to slash manufacturing costs by up to 30 percent and as to add $6 billion to the U.S. economy every year, Edison Materials Technology Center developed and refine, from 2000 to 2005, an innovative technique for making a wide array of hardened steel parts through lean manufacturing of steel.

“Hard turning”, a method to forge hot metal into nearly perfect parts and hardening and machining these after, was discovered to eliminate waste and possibly the need for polluting oils which are used in cutting and grinding. If hard turning will be applied to manufacture gears and turbine blades, this would meet EMTC’s goals.

EMTC has developed hard-turning technologies and a complete prototype system. Other members of the team are Delphi Automotive Systems, Torrington Co., Kennametal, Third Wave, Hardinge, Inc., Masco Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Ohio State University.

Applying lean manufacturing of steel, Cairns Steel Fabricators also doubled its capacity and improved productivity. Established in 1979, CSF is a company focusing on steel fabrication and erection which employs around 60 personnel and handles 150 tonnes of steel per week.

QMI solutions offered a holistic approach to lean manufacturing of steel through its ProEdge Manufacturing Excellence program.

To ensure lean manufacturing of steel, CSF decided to address its internal processes first before expanding. CSF altered factory layout, house keeping and machinery setup. Efficient use of space and equipment resulted to increased productivity.

CSF positioned individual work areas in specific spots and color-coded tools to ensure they are returned to their proper places. In CSF’s case, it was important to look at the “little everyday things” in order to make the system leaner.

Sustaining the Gains from Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is becoming a popular and widely used set of techniques and approaches aimed at boosting profitability and increasing competitiveness among major companies worldwide.

Because the world economy has somehow been subjected to various crises and turmoil from political and other economic hurdles, companies around the world are currently on the receding trend.

That is why companies do acknowledge the importance of integrating within them and adopting the helpful and effective strategies and principles of lean manufacturing.

Since lean manufacturing is basically involved in obtaining the right things, putting them to their proper and right places, during the right time, at the same time in ample and sufficient quantities, companies adopting them should really be careful in implementing them.

Lean manufacturing fundamentally aims to reduce waste and make companies more competitive by helping them turn into flexible firms which are open and subject to positive developments, innovations and changes.

Hence, the real challenges faced by all firms adopting the lean manufacturing principles are those that revolve around how to sustain gains from lean manufacturing.

Gains from lean manufacturing

There are several identified benefits that can surely arise from successful and effective implementation of lean manufacturing principles.

It is apparent and logical to state that lean manufacturing can have positive, direct and immediate influence and impact on companies. Implementation of lean manufacturing measures and techniques will surely and undoubtedly bring about numerous and significant gains and benefits to companies.

Lean manufacturing is sure to get companies reduce or slash manufacturing time without sacrificing output number and quantities. Experts believe that by implementing lean manufacturing principles within operations, companies can have a 50% to 90% reduction in overall manufacturing time.

That gain from lean manufacturing can be sustained only by continuing to implement effectively the helpful and effective principles of lean manufacturing.

Space gains

Another gain sure to be brought about by effective implementation of lean manufacturing is the reduction or lessening of floor space requirements.

Because lean manufacturing also involves the effective and strategic elimination of wastes and unproductive equipment in the work place, companies are expected to maximize space, making worker freer and faster to move around the work stations.

That could be sustained by preventing to buy unnecessary equipment. Redundancies and duplication of machines’ purposes and intent should also be avoided.

Increased benefits

If lean manufacturing reduces manufacturing time and floor space requirements, it can, on the other hand, increase a number of gainful aspects.

For one, productivity of companies increase by using and adopting the lean manufacturing principles and techniques. As mentioned earlier, because disruptions and unnecessary wasteful machines are taken out of the work place, personnel are more free to move around.

The comfort given to employees make them more efficient and thus make them more produce more outputs. In turn, that could be to the advantage of the company.

That lean manufacturing gain can be sustained by maintaining the smooth and effective implementation of lean manufacturing strategies and techniques.

Other gains of lean manufacturing

Companies adopting and integrating lean manufacturing techniques in their operations are also expected to improve their overall customer and client focus, boost the leadership potentials of their key personnel and make up for a leaner structure of the business.

What benefits would it be if companies achieve these gains? Of course, the overall profitability, competency and image of the company will be significantly boosted.

That would really count amid an intense competition, hard economic environment and overall rising of operational costs among companies.

To sustain such gains, it would be really imperative for companies to really maintain their focus on their goals and priorities upon implementing lean manufacturing techniques and principles.

Companies should remember that reaping benefits from such strategies upon initial successful implementation should not be a guarantee that the gains would keep on pouring.

Strong will power and determination would really keep companies afloat and surviving. Sustaining gains would be as hard an activity as seeking profit improvements and boosting competitiveness, but it is one concept and aspect, companies should really strive to get into.