Maynard Gets Results: Matthews Teams with Maynard for Operation Streamline

Practically everywhere you go – office buildings, parks, hospitals, universities, places of worship, cemeteries and even the Baseball Hall of Fame – there are cast metal plaques or bronze statues manufactured by the Bronze Division of Pittsburgh-based Matthews International Corporation. Matthews’ products are installed all over the world to identify, dedicate, commemorate and recognize people, places and events.

Throughout Matthews’ foundries in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia, we combine age-old casting techniques with the latest technology to manufacture high quality identification and memorialization products.

The year 2000 was a milestone for our division for two reasons. In January, we began a 12-month celebration marking our 150th anniversary, and in June, we established a partnership with Maynard to introduce Operation Streamline, otherwise known as lean manufacturing programs, in our plants. We chose Maynard because they could provide the tools, training and guidance to help us meet our goal of greater efficiency.

Set-up for Success

During the first meeting with the Maynard representatives, we outlined the goals we wished to achieve – primarily to make each job well organized and more efficient – a major undertaking for a plant with more than 300 employees. This session was followed by a thorough tour of our Pittsburgh facility where they observed each aspect of our production process and assessed our needs.

A project of this magnitude requires a strong commitment and someone who can effectively oversee and implement the changes. We appointed an experienced manager from our Finish- ing Department to serve as the project leader for our Streamline program. Following Maynard’s recommendation, we began the first phase of our program in the Set-up Department of our Pittsburgh plant. In Set-up, our patterns are prepared for casting. It is the initial part of the production process where every memorial and architectural order is sent once it is entered into our system. By creating greater efficiencies in this department, we could more accurately control product flow in order to reduce backlogs and keep the products moving through the production process.

We called our initiative “Operation Streamline” because that phrase most accurately reflected our mission. Along with Maynard, we assembled a group of employees who were closely involved in the department’s operations. In keeping with the 5-S concept which represents sort and remove, shine and inspect, set location and visual cues, system-a-tize and stay the course, they started by sorting the area. During the shine and set in order phases, the group identified every item essential to performing each job efficiently.

The next step was the rearrangement and renovation of the work area to accommodate our changing needs. With Maynard’s assistance, we adopted new procedures designed to pace the production flow. We also introduced new technology that improved quality while reducing labor time.

The improvements quickly began to yield benefits.

• Through the use of production and staff planning tools, we could accurately set daily production goals and track success which led to a reduction in overtime costs.
• We also recorded a significant decrease in production response time. On randomly selected sample patterns, production time decreased 90 percent from nearly one full shift to less than one hour.
• Value-added ratio, which measures the percentage of time that value-added work is performed, rose from 5 percent to nearly 50 percent. With this increase in speed, the Set-up department was able to fill customer orders more quickly and adapt to schedule changes more rapidly.
• Most importantly, the 5-S effort integrated employees into the company’s culture of continuous improvement. The Set-up area’s cleanliness and organization increased dramatically, with the work environment becoming the new standard for our plant.

Once we successfully implemented the 5-S system in the Pittsburgh Set-up Department, we introduced the techniques in other areas of our Pittsburgh plant as well as our Kingwood, West Virginia and Searcy, Arkansas manufacturing facilities.

Overall, our partnership with Maynard has proven invaluable. We work well together because we share common philosophies. Through their leadership and commitment, we were able to reach our goals.

This article is the first of a two-part series detailing the impact that the Maynard partnership has had on the Bronze Division of Matthews International Corporation.