k3 mapa finishes “Design for Manufacturing” project with a luxury SUV producer
Wiesbaden, Madrid, March 22nd 2017. LEAN production concepts were taken into account during the development phase of new SUV vehicle. The advanced manufacturing director of the client expresses his full satisfaction with the project result.
The LEAN philosophy was first introduced by Toyota in the 1940’s for direct production improvements by eliminating the so-called Muda (waste). Any activity by an operator, which is not directly identified as a value adding activity, needs to be questioned in order to reduce or even better eliminate this activity. Reductions of unnecessary movements or transport are well known examples. But what if a non value adding activity during the product assembly – such as a movement – is pre-determined by the product design? How can the LEAN philosophy be best applied in order to take into account the needed reduction of non value add activities?
For a major luxury SUV producer it was key to benchmark against competitors and to analyse the current product design during the development phase of a new vehicle in order to optimise the future manufacturing process. In a structured set of “Design for Manufacturing” (DfMa) workshops involving various departments indicators were designed and product designs were adopted.
“I am extremely happy with the project output. We finally found a very structured way to include manufacturing aspects into the development phase. In the past our activities were more event driven. Furthermore, the results of the DfMa workshops demonstrate the immense improvement potential we will be able to implement with the new vehicle.” – summarises the director of Advanced Manufacturing his full satisfaction with the current project.
“This project was very interesting for us. It has once again proven that existing LEAN concepts might be known in general, but when it comes to full implementation even automotive companies are still scratching on the surface. I am sure the potentials for other companies are as huge as for this client” – states k3 partner Thorsten Schuppenhauer.
k3 mapa is a top management consulting company which is focused on implementation. All our consultants have at least 10 years international experience, and come from industry champions or the best companies in the consulting world. k3 provides expertise in the core functions of the value chain. It is through this expertise that k3 can help its clients tackle complex cross-functional improvement endeavours (business excellence), function specific interventions (functional excellence) as well as project and interim management (project excellence). For more information: info@k3-mapa.com