How Process Optimization Leads to Reduced Costs
August 1, 2022by rpothier
Process optimization is a great cost-effective way to increase production volume.
Here’s a great example of how we did this for a customer back in 2018 when their orders increased by +200%.
Some context info: The existing process required a secondary machining operation to produce geometries not achievable with an injection mold tool. The injection molding process could easily support the increase in demand, however, the secondary machining operation was slow and could not support the increase in demand without the addition of a second shift operation.
Opening a second shift operation would have required an increase in cost to our customers.
So, we decided to conduct a detailed review of our machining process. First, we conducted a time study to determine if there were any areas of improvement and eliminate wasted time/ movements. In our review, we found there was a “non-value added” time in the process of clamping/ unclamping the part into the fixture. Furthermore, the need for 5 different CNC tooling changes exacerbated this waste.
We identified that by using a toggle clamp we could still hold the part and reduce the clamp/un-clamp time by 31%, a 70.5-second cycle reduction.
Our team then moved on to review the reasons for the need to use 5 different tools. As each tool change took 12 seconds, an additional 60 seconds of “non-value” added time was incurred.
We found that the milling functions were redundant and therefore designed a form tool that could combine operations. These improvements improved the cycle by another 40%. In the end, our process improvement team was able to increase our 8-hour production by 236%. We were also able to reduce our labor cost per part by 62%.
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