Montana companies go Lean – ‘In a nutshell, we try to identify where the wastes are within an organization’

Anderson Steel Supply Co.’s recent $1.4 million expansion provided the company with some much-needed space and upgraded equipment.

By BETH BRITTON
Tribune Business Editor

Equally as important, perhaps, is the opportunity that expansion offered for President Susan Humble and the company’s 45 Great Falls employees to examine the way they do their work and then make some changes.

"We’re looking at all things and how we can do what we do better and obviously make more money," Humble said.

Enter the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center (MMEC), a Bozeman-based organization that offers engineering help, including a Lean Manufacturing Program, to Montana companies.

As its name implies, Lean Manufacturing requires businesses to trim the fat from their operations and find the most efficient production methods to help them compete.

"In a nutshell, we try to identify where the wastes are within an organization," MMEC Field Engineer Todd Daniels said. Daniels is one of six field engineers statewide; he works in Helena, Great Falls and northcentral Montana.

Lean Manufacturing is something a growing number of businesses are discovering they need to implement in order to compete in a modern business environment, where Humble said customers are demanding faster and better service all the time.

Anderson Steel’s Billings site implemented lean techniques about a year ago, and the Great Falls site started this spring.

"It’s hard to make the transition to lean when you are still trying to do work, but you can’t let being busy be an excuse," Humble said. "Some shop downtime is worth it to get lean. It’s a big difference when you walk in the shop for both production and safety issues.

"A clean shop, I really harp on this," Humble added. "I hate junk and clutter laying around."

Lean is about more than cleaning and organizing, however. It’s a new philosophy for the Great Falls company.

Anderson Steel created "continuous improvement teams," and all employees are required to identify and ultimately correct any areas in which time, manpower or materials are wasted.

"We teach people to identify what is being done that is not adding value to the product," Daniels said. Now that the shop is organized for more efficient production, Daniels is working with Anderson Steel employees to apply lean techniques in other areas, including the bidding process and the calculation of production costs.

"Lean offers a little bit for almost every industry, and our mission is to help all manufacturers," he said.

Short-term help of less than eight hours is free. In addition to client fees for larger projects, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the state of Montana provide funding for the center.

Demand for the center’s services is on the rise, Daniels said, due in part to a modern market in which customers want things to be quick, inexpensive and their way.

Technical writer Deborah Nash said the center’s engineers have taught the Lean Manufacturing program to more than 90 Montana companies — and more than 800 employees — since 1999.

"Lean is almost more of a philosophy," Nash said. "You try to build to customer order instead of building a lot and hoping they come and buy it."

It’s a philosophy Northwinds Printing & Publishing General Manager Mike Wier and his 35 employees embraced about four years ago.

"From my take, lean is looking at your company from your customers’ eyes, not yours," Wier said.

Customers don’t care about the myriad of other jobs waiting to be done, he said. They want their job done quickly, efficiently and well.

MMEC’s engineers train the people doing the actual work and then help them change the organization, Daniels said.

"It gives responsibility to those folks who may not otherwise have had it in the past," he explained.

Northwinds was experiencing a major growth spurt at the time its managers turned to the MMEC for assistance and training in Lean Manufacturing.

Since that time, they’ve applied the principles in various areas, including inventory, personnel management and workflow.

"Our turnaround time has decreased dramatically, and we reduced paper inventory by one-third," Wier said. "That’s money that is tied up in inventory."

Northwinds’ Manufacturing Manager Dave Bennyhoff admits it took employees a while to understand and accept a new way of doing things.

"Now, they like the fact that they’re busy all the time and they get a variety of work," Bennyhoff said. "They have increased responsibility, they’re able to recognize waste and it’s a team effort."

And although the company operates more efficiently today, no jobs have disappeared.

"No one’s lost their jobs because of lean; it just allows us to do more," Wier said.

Another rapidly growing regional company that turned to the MMEC for lean assistance is Lewistown’s HCR, Inc., a manufacturer of doorways for high-usage freezers and coolers.

By reducing inventory and waste, eliminating bottlenecks on the production line and simply by taking the time to organize the shop, HCR officials noticed changes within a few months, said Pete Smith, one of four partners at HCR.

"Our company has been growing significantly every year, and we’ve been able to put out more product with the same number of people and no new facility," Smith said. "That’s a major cost savings.

"We were way behind, putting people on overtime, and we couldn’t promise delivery time," he added. "I came to realize that if we organized ourselves a little better and rearranged how we moved product through production, we could pick up efficiencies and reduce lead time to customers."

Today, HCR produces a quicker turnaround time for its customers, and Smith said the Lean Manufacturing principles will result in continuous improvement.

That continuous improvement is something Anderson Steel Production Manager John Canady says will help him and his employees improve product flow and efficiencies in the shop within six months.

"It’s like a 12-step program to make you more efficient," Canady said. "It works, and you can’t go off the program."

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20030615/localnews/486764.html