DuraVent Case Study

DuraVent Case Study

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  Campbell Corporation |7111 W. Edgerton Avenue | Greenfield, WI 53220 Phone: 414.421.7601 www.campbellcorp.net           PROCESS LAYOUT         Earlier this year, Robert Campbell and John Collins visited our Vacaville, California facility. In less than a day, they keyed in on our largest constraint: painting! By interviewing various members of our team including our Manager of Engineering, our Manufacturing Engineers, paint line operators, and myself, they recommended a combination of simple solutions which allowed us to increase throughput by 40% in less than one week. Their final recommendations, which consisted of procedural and policy initiatives, increased the throughput of one of our two paint lines by 215% allowing us to remove the other paint line completely and transfer it to one of our other facilities. This not only freed up about 6,000 square feet of floor space at our Vacaville facility but saved our other facility the expense of purchasing a new paint line. Thanks to Campbell Corporation, in a few short months we went from having two paint lines which couldn’t keep up down to one with extra capacity! Mark Palmatier Plant Manager M&G DuraVent “ “ DuraVent Gains 115% Improvement in Paint Line Efficiency and 22% Improvement in Material Handling from Proposed Facilities Redesign DuraVent is a recognized technological leader in the venting industry. Consistently the first to market with new innovations in venting systems, DuraVent has captured a leadership position in emerging markets. DuraVent has patents for several products and continues to design safe and technologically advanced venting. The company's research into solving problems with corrosion, when biofuels such as corn are used, led to the break-through patent for PelletVent Pro. They began working with Campbell Corporation in their Vacaville, California facility after consolidating two of their manufacturing facilities into one. The company’s newly combined manufacturing operation had significant challenges with facility layout, material handling and process flow, which were resulting in late deliveries, high WIP and inventory levels, and long cycle times. Just Do It Campbell Corporation began its preliminary study of the facility and quickly recommended a list of immediate improvements, called “Just Do Its,” that DuraVent could implement to resolve significant bottlenecks in its paint line that were a major cause of late customer deliveries. These recommendations included speeding up the paint line timing, reducing the space between products on the line and several other adjustments, which immediately eliminated bottlenecks and even enabled the company to remove one of the paint lines and use it at another facility. A series of small changes yielded big results for DuraVent, with a 115 percent improvement in paint line efficiency. Digging into the Data Next, Campbell Corporation tackled the challenge of developing a facility redesign project with a significant lack of relevant data to aid in decision making. Like many manufacturing organizations, DuraVent had some production data, but very little operating time data or standard work diagrams, and was lacking a comprehensive data collection infrastructure. Working in close collaboration with the DuraVent team, Campbell Corporation was able to obtain the data needed for the facilities study through observation and manual data collection to close the gaps between the data required and the data that was readily available. There also was significant SKU complexity in DuraVent’s highly complex, high volume product manufacturing facilities that required a considerable amount of analysis by the Campbell team to identify potential efficiency gains. As part of its recommendations, the Campbell manufacturing consulting team outlined a process for DuraVent to enhance the accuracy and analysis of production data so that future process improvement projects would be easier. Streamlining Production Campbell Corporation generated three different process layout designs to determine the layout that would achieve the greatest improvements in both material flow and process equipment efficiencies. The recommended layout design required an implementation budget of $1.15 million that would yield a return on investment in approximately 1.68 years, and the project would be completed in 13 months without impacting production. Campbell also made recommendations that could be implemented while the basic process layout was being reconfigured in order to gain efficiencies throughout the 13-month transition. In addition, DuraVent was advised to incorporate Campbell’s Lean manufacturing culture within the plant to teach all personnel to identify and eliminate waste in the production process. Implementation of an ERP system was also recommended to ensure more reliable manufacturing schedules.
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  Campbell Corporation |7111 W. Edgerton Avenue | Greenfield, WI 53220 Phone: 414.421.7601 www.campbellcorp.net        Campbell Corporation is a Lean process and facilities design consulting firm based in the United States with extensive global experience. We are a recognized leader and innovator delivering a demonstrated approach to process improvement and facility design across countless industries. Campbell Corporation’s client base ranges from small single shop manufacturers to Fortune 100 Manufacturers with multiple facilities throughout the world. Campbell Corporation’s suite of services includes Lean Six Sigma consulting, facility design focused on supporting Lean processes, enterprise wide strategic production planning, and project execution. Our approach is focused on utilizing Lean principles to perfect the processes which transform raw materials to finished goods resulting in improved operational performance. We utilize a balanced strategy of intense project management and the blending of resources, technology, experience, and expertise to achieve sustainable solutions to our clients’ unique challenges. Our facility design professionals work hand in hand with our expert Lean Practitioners to design an optimized process layout to fit within an existing facility or to design a new facility which completely support Lean operations. Whether implementing or improving a Lean transformation, developing a new facility or adding onto an existing one; Campbell Corporation’s proven results oriented methodologies can lower costs, waste, WIP, finished goods and man hours while increasing efficiency, quality, and overall ROI.                   Sectors  Team Clients         Our manufacturing and business process experience includes Machinery, Fabrication, Electonics, Petroleum, Textile, Wood, Printing and many others   Our Team of 50+ executives, designers, and lean professionals provide our clients a scallable, diverse and experienced resource to tackle any problem in any industry   Our clients and projects range from Fortune 500 companies to family owned manufacturers with projects ranging from Kaizen events to Global Enterprise Solutions    Efficiency and Lower Cost With Campbell Corporation’s assistance, DuraVent will reap significant improvement to their operational equipment efficiency, and improve overall material handling by 22 percent. The total production efficiency will improve 26.4 percent when the implementation is complete, including a 20 percent improvement in press operations efficiency and a 12 percent increase in packaging operations efficiency. The efficiencies are so significant that the company is gaining 25.5 percent more production space availability, enabling them to consolidate other product manufacturing into the same plant, further improving the efficiency of their national supply chain. Campbell Corporation’s ability to analyze and understand DuraVent’s highly complex product matrix and manufacturing requirements, combined with the firm’s significant experience in manufacturing facility design and process improvement, is enabling the team to deliver a plant redesign that offers greater efficiency and better material flow at a lower cost. By offering additional recommendations that could be implemented at the beginning of the project, as well as during the transition period, Campbell provided added value every step of the way to enable the DuraVent team to recognize the progress they are making throughout the redesign process.