October 16, 2009 -- HEI, Inc., a provider of flexible printed circuits and microelectronic assemblies to the medical, communications and mil/aero markets, recently announced a 25% increase in its manufacturing capabilities. Gray McQuarrie, continuous improvement consultant to HEI, reports that the organization "achieved this significant milestone by treating every job as a 'quick turn'."
According to McQuarrie, the new approach required HEI to "re-evaluate and re-vamp" many of its systems "from top to bottom." Some of the measures that HEI has undertaken and instituted as part of their daily operations include:
-- Conducting daily product/manufacturing flow meetings.
-- Establishing an engineering team that is dedicated to following the "Scrum" process. Scrum is a term taken from the game rugby, where players all converge on the field, coming together on top of the ball. The Scrum method of change and continuous improvement is where engineers and team members involved in process and product improvement similarly come together as challenges arise. "They tackle the problem at hand, and then immediately go off and execute the new plan of attack," says McQuarrie.
-- Using design of experiments deliberately to remove over-processing.
-- Reducing the work in process by 2/3 on the factory floor using a simple, yet sophisticated, Kanban system.
-- Never overproducing.
According to HEI, several other positives have resulted from the company's drive to increase their "quick turn" offering. Bill Sezate, general manager for HEI's Tempe, Arizona location, comments, "As is often the case when you make a concentrated effort at improving one or more aspects of your business, you find that many other areas are positively affected as well. We keep a very clean shop. We no longer over-process. Most importantly, we now have a policy that all of our employees embrace: 'No restarts. No reworks.' We do it right the first time. What we have developed here is a real quality-conscious culture."
How exactly does this benefit HEI's customers? Faster delivery with higher quality, maintains the company. HEI's enhanced ability to support rapid product development cycles has reportedly enabled their clientele to decrease the cost associated with traditional time-to-market expectations.
HEI Inc. is an ITAR Registered, FDA Registered contract manufacturer specializing in EMS, including medical device manufacturing, microelectronic assembly, turnkey manufacturing, ATE services, ceramic, flex and rigid flex substrate manufacturing. The company provides rapid prototyping and engineering services, product design, automation and test services, as well as "box build" manufacturing, distribution and fulfillment platforms.
On the Web:
www.heii.com.
