International award for LERC

A collaboration in South Wales has won an international award for best project delivery.

The work of the Lean Enterprise Research Centre (LERC), part of Cardiff Business School, on its ‘Lean Flow’ project with Metal Bond has recently won the Bombardier Project of the Year award.

The project involved implementing a flow system in a complex upstream manufacturing process in the aerospace sector. The benefits included a 30% reduction in lead time and a 40% reduction in work in progress, contributing to making the company more responsive and flexible, improving its competitive edge.

Metal Bond was experiencing difficulties in providing a consistent supply of parts of the required quality to its key customers. As a result, inventory levels were high, on-line delivery to customers was sporadic and the unit cost of components was exceeding target.

The Flow project involved around 100 employees and was led by a cross functional team. It sought to focus on a ‘constraint’, or the most challenging aspect of a production process, and restructure the management systems specifically around it. The laser scribe machine was identified as the constraint in the process and has been organised to improve flow and throughput.

Davy Mason, Operations Manager of Metal Bond, is delighted with the results:

‘The first phase of the Flow project has reduced work in progress by 40%, decreased significantly the quantity of raw material in storage and shortened the manufacturing cycle time from 37 to 25 days. Also, if required, the unit can now process fast-track components in 10 days.’