Managing Automation - September 2007 - (Page 34)

[ THE WINNERS] McKay, L&H’s executive vice president. “But once we recovered from the shock, we were able to fill in some of the blanks and say, ‘We can streamline this and do better at that.’ ” AUTOMATING PROCESSES The company attacked a range of processes. L&H, for example, used lean principles to streamline a production workflow that involved building gear boxes, pumps, and fittings for an aerospace customer, turning an inefficient process into one that automatically coordinates part replenishment with customer demand. L&H also automated several processes that had previously been manual and wasteful. The company, for example, created customized Web sites for customers where they could access real-time inventory, pricing delivery, and order information, and place orders. The company also automated the creation of 4,000 posttransaction acknowledgments per month. While L&H’s lean initiative was the starting point for such improvements, they were enabled by a home-grown software system that performs ERP, CRM, opportunity management, and other enterprise functions. The system, internally called Apoge, was developed in the mid-1980s on top of the Oracle database management system. At that time, L&H became an Oracle partner and planned to market Apoge to other manufacturing companies. Although that plan failed, L&H decided to stick with Apoge rather than switch to a commercial enterprise application suite. L&H needs 10 staff people and contractors to maintain and enhance Apoge, but it’s worth it, Vann says, because the company can quickly enhance the system to support its transformation efforts as well as customers and partners. “If you can give us XML strings, we’ll tie right to the database, and tomorrow you can see purchase orders, invoices, acknowledgments — all that information,” Vann says. “Other manufacturers have to deal with third-party software providers who really couldn’t care less what managingautomation.com their woes are. We don’t.” RELATED ARTICLES: In fact, L&H has also leveraged Lean: Shaping Up for Growth Apoge to create a collaborative supwww.managingautomation.com/lean3 ply network with two other makers of A Roadmap to Lean Success hydraulics, lubrication, and pneuwww.managingautomation.com/lean6 matics systems that, like L&H, disProgressive Manufacturers: Reaching tribute equipment made by Bosch for Success Rexroth AG. Both companies, Womwww.managingautomation.com/progressive36 ack Machine Supply in Dallas and Progressive Manufacturer of the Year: Airline Hydraulics in Philadelphia, Kemco Manufacturing www.managingautomation.com/progressive34 use Apoge to run their own businesses. Because all three companies are on the same system, they have visibility into the inventories of the other partners and can even ship from one another’s warehouses, dramatically reducing lead times. “In this case, software is the tie that binds,” Vann says. But L&H’s accomplishments go well beyond improving its internal operations. The company has shared with customers the valuable lessons it has learned from transforming itself. L&H has placed a major emphasis on its field engineering organization, providing most of its 60 degreed engineers with lean training and tools so that they can transfer L&H’s experience to customers. L&H has also transformed the way it delivers engineering support to customers. Traditionally, L&H and its competitors provided an engineer, who was trained as a generalist, to support customers in deploying its systems. As manufacturing environments have become more complex, however, and as manufacturers have cut back their own engineering staffs, that approach has become insufficient, Vann says. So L&H has trained and organized its engineering staff in specific disciplines, such as hydraulics, pneumatics, lubrication, automation, and electronics. Now L&H may send three or more such engineering domain experts to support an implementation. That approach, Vann says, involved considerable risk for L&H. For one thing, the company had to invest in additional training for its engineering staff. For another, it had to pay for more engineers to be involved in each deployment project, and it had to make sure all the engineers involved in a given project could easily collaborate. L&H enhanced the Apoge system to support such collaboration. “At a time when most people in our industry were cutting back, we did not cut back a lot. We actually invested in our business, knowing that the economy was going to turn at some point,” Vann says. “We had to be ready for our customers and in a position where we had the technical expertise to provide the collaboration of these technologies that manufacturers had not seen before.” L&H’s customers have noticed the changes. At Nucor Corp., which makes steel joists and decks, L&H engineers have worked to keep hydraulic systems running. The higher domain expertise of L&H’s engineers “has helped us reduce downtime tremendously,” says Ray Evans, Nucor’s maintenance supervisor. While L&H isn’t in a position to single-handedly save U.S. manufacturing, it’s clear that by investing in transformation, the company is doing its share to help its customers thrive. ■ maonline ma September 34 2007 http://managingautomation.com http://www.managingautomation.com/lean3 http://www.managingautomation.com/lean6 http://www.managingautomation.com/progressive36 http://www.managingautomation.com/progressive34

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - September 2007

Contents Take 1 Europe’s Automation Chiefs Upbeat on ’08 Business Prospects Vendor Coalition Pushes Human Element of SOA Wireless: Users Still Approaching with Caution One Year Later, IBM Shows Plan for MRO’s Maximo Study: More Work Needed to Lure Next-Gen Talent Executive Q&A Notes Cover Story: 2008 Companies to Watch Special Report: The 2007 Progressive Manufacturing High Achievers Progressive Manufacturer of the Year Business Model Mastery Innovation Mastery Customer Mastery Supply Network Mastery Data & Integration Mastery Education & Training Mastery Operational Excellence Mastery Leadership Mastery Transformation: Orchestrating the Multi-Tier Supply Network Integration: The Timeless Quest for Accurate Data Industries: Maintenance No Longer on Schedule Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - September 2007

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