Case Study No 1B

Last week I covered Case Study 1A, the prequel to this one.

Case Study 1A described the installation of a new process in my client’s existing manufacturing plant. That work solved their very significant customer breakage problem, and their customer happily resumed normal production. So far, so good, now let’s look at what happened next. The story from last week continues below…

Situation

The organic liquid that was the fix for this problem had to be mixed into a natural gas supply line before it could be used in the process. The method described in last week’s case study was a “bubbler” type process. This bubbler process had significant shortcomings: if the liquid level and temperature were not measured and compensated for, the amount of the organic liquid in the natural gas would change unacceptably, resulting in process or product problems. This compensation was doable, but it required manual tracking and correction to keep the process centered and on track.

Intervention

A new process concept was developed; it did not have the shortcomings of the existing “bubbler” method. The bubbler system was replaced by a direct injection system, where a small pump metered the correct amount of organic liquid into the natural gas line. An outside consulting firm helped with the design and installation of the system, but ultimately they were unable to make the system work as needed. I was able to develop and implement a software “hack” that compensated for an imperfection in the pump’s performance: this hack was the key to making the system work and be trustworthy. Doing all this development work in the plant was tricky because we could not disturb regular production. To manage this risk, we thoroughly debugged the new system before using it in production.

Result

The new direct injection process was very well received by my client. It eliminated all of the shortcomings of the previous bubbler process. It required very little work by the process technicians, so they were very enthusiastic about it. The customer continued to be very happy with the products because they worked well in their process with low breakage levels.

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I learned a lot from the work described in this week’s and last week’s case studies. I learned how difficult it is to innovate in an existing production facility where production must continue uninterrupted. I also learned what a huge benefit the right process can be to an existing business. In some cases, the right process can literally save a business and keep a customer. To make this happen, someone must enthusiastically own the process and systematically develop the new process with Process Stewardship as their guiding principle.

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YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK

Please think about upgrades you have made to existing manufacturing processes over the last 5-10 years…

• How have these upgrade efforts gone? What can be learned from these efforts? Were there process owners who led and spearheaded these efforts?

• Are any of your (important) existing processes in need of an upgrade? Have you used the Ideal Final Result methodology to systematically envision and start creating one of these new processes?

I’d really like to hear your thoughts about both this and last week’s Case Studies. Please give us a call to see how we can help you build great and trustworthy manufacturing processes or if you are curious about the Ideal Final Result methodology.

If you email me I’ll get back to you promptly, thanks.

All the Best,

Marty

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