Manufacturing Line Management - Production Improvement

Mr. White was tasked with managing and improving the assembly line of Glastron Boat Company's large boat manufacturing facility. The plant had been built a few years earlier to produce the new line of 15 - 25 ft fiberglass boats, but was under performing substantially.

In the years prior to Mr. White's management of the assembly facility, production had reached a plateau of two boats per day, which was 50% of designed capacity. The production rate of the facility had increased to near 4 boats per day after 9 months under Mr. White's management.

The large boat manufacturing facility was a unionized shop, consisting of a molding line, and an assembly line. The 50 employees on the assembly line, were for the most part very experienced at building and assembling the expensive boats, many with twin V8 engines, fly bridges and sleeping cabins. At the point of assuming the role of managing the line, Mr. White's only experience at boat building was a 3 month training period spending time working at each workstation on the company's medium boat line.

At the time he assumed the management role, Mr. White recognized the following issues:

• There was an absenteeism / morale issue - The work was hard, the hours were long and the pay was relatively low.
• There was a parts supply issue - a boat cannot be completed without a speedometer or any other component.
• There was a damage control issue - time spent repairing fiberglass damage on the line, was time not spent assembling boats.
• With the exception of the parts supply issue, the employees own knowledge and motivation held the keys to the success of the facility.

To address the morale issue, Mr. White announced on his first day that each day, as the engineers took completed boats at the end of the assembly line to (Beautiful) Lake Travis for testing, one employee would go along for the ride. This had an amazing affect as the returning employees generally were awed by the experience and shared their stories with their co-workers.

The supply issue was solved by changing the method of parts delivery. Previously, each type of part would be delivered in bulk, and the inventory department was responsible for maintaining inventory. However, they could not always be aware of malfunctioning or lost parts in time to prevent shortages on a given boat. The delivery supply issue was resolved by manufacturing carts to hold all of the small parts for each boat. Every cart that was delivered to the line, had exactly the parts for a specific boat, and traveled the line attached to that boat. A small backup inventory was kept in case of defective parts, and rules were instituted to prevent installation of parts on any boat other than the one intended.

The absenteeism problem was mostly a function of the overall morale, but to focus the issue, every Friday at the end of the day, Mr. White instituted a "Party." All time cards with perfect attendance for the week, were put in a hat. The person drawn became the focus of what amounted to a good spirited "Roast", and received prizes. It was fun, and contributed to better attendance and morale.

The answer to the damage issue was not obvious. Mr. White put a piece of construction paper on the lunch room wall, with a few penny's taped to it and these words on it:

"A Penny for your thoughts. I will pay you $ for good ideas!"

A few days later, when Mr. White was observing the area where a lot of damage occurred, one of the employees suggested cutting off the metal track of the assembly line to make it easier to position the very large hulls onto the line. Mr. White immediately pulled cash from his pocket, gave it to the employee, and called the engineering department to cut the track. Damage was almost eliminated. Just as importantly, as employees saw that the cash was real, many good suggestions started to flow, and many improvements resulted.

In combination with similar improvements made to the molding line (where the fiberglass was molded into hulls and decks) over the same time period by another individual, the large boat factory was able to very nearly double production in 9 months.