From tooling to Kaizen

A pilot Kaizen event that was created to share improvements and best practice across the EMC has already started to pay back big results.

The event brought the tooling engineering and Kaizen teams together with specialist IMTs from our new Machining Hall to support colleagues in driving improvements in their areas and processes.

In just the few short weeks since the event it has already had a big hit after colleagues found a way to change tools on the Op100 crank line twice as fast.

The team made a 64% improvement on their change times as well as making new contacts in other departments to help them put their new found process skills into action.

Manufacturing Improvement lead Ian Jones, who arranged the Kaizen event, said: “The team showed great tenacity and real innovation in the improvements that they looked at and were able to get real tangible results in just a week of focusing on a particular area of the crank line.

“During the week long process, the changeover went from two hours, 45 minutes to just over an hour. This involved specialists working to identify key areas for improvement, such as base location for tools and spares and as a result a new trolley was created.”

Leading the project was Daniel Guyton, alongside, tooling engineer Gareth Harper, team leader Reece Bains, IMT Ben Humphries, IMS Leigh Samuels and IPS associate Ricky Jones.

Following the success of the pilot, the team are aiming to roll out further project activity in 2019.

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