Success Stories
From the Automotive Industry:
BLMC has served the automotive manufacturing market for the last 15 years, and some of our principals have been in it for over 30 years. It was the first real end-to-end assembly process that was automated and many current industry practices are based on the errors and successes in the Automotive Industry. We have worked with Automotive companies in simplifying their manufacturing processes using lean manufacturing and flexible automation techniques. We have increased capacity on automated lines through our knowledge of flexible automation design and use, and how to effectively tie the people on the line to the power of the automation.

We have helped clients layout their automation more effectively, with a lower cost and substantially lower lead times. We have worked with thought leaders in component design on future concepts of products and design, including the manufacturing processes and the supply chain concepts associated with flexible automation. Our World Class Manufacturing Metrics developed around optimizing flexible automation for the automotive industry is now used for optimizing the design of entire factories in all industries. Our history in this segment is rich with success and we have been privileged to work here. There is little that we haven’t seen or done in this industry.

Read some of our Automotive success stories:

Success Stories
Story #1 Synopsis:
Lean Manufacturing for High Product Mix Plants

Problem:
Our client is a $65 million manufacturer of tool & die supplies, supporting the automotive and appliance industry, with nearly a dozen manufacturing and distribution facilities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The company was considered the “high price” alternative to competitors across the U.S. and Canada. The company was losing market share and was marginally profitabile

What We Did:

• Provided assistance to reorganize the management reporting structure, resulting in fewer layers of management and improving communications and accountability.
• Used plant rationalization strategies to minimize the number and type of operations. Evaluated the number and location of the plants and distribution offices. Closed unprofitable and under utilized facilities.
• Used our process reengineering methodology to reengineer the sales, customer service and distribution processes.
• Launched an e-commerce solution that provided customers the ability to place orders and check order status on-line.
• Used Supply Chain Management strategies to streamline the supply chain.

Impact:

• Reduced product cost and SG&A by over $5.0 million.
• Increased cash flow by nearly $6.0 million.
• Reduced lead-time by 85%.
• Reduced work-in-process inventory by 75%.

Success Stories
Story #2 Synopsis:
Improving Flexible Automation

Problem:
A major automotive electronics company had spent over $60 Million on an automated line for building electronic engine control modules (EEC’s) located in a new factory in Spain. The design was based on a 10 second interval tac time, and it was running at over 21 seconds…substantially constraining the new plant’s planned output and moving into the lost profit category.

What We Did:

• Did an assessment of the odd form insertion system that consisted of 13 robots inserting 39 different parts with 25 different boards…true flexible automation, and determined that the parts feeders weren’t working as planned, the robot accuracy was poor (failed transaction requiring reboot was occurring every 20 transactions) and the work staff was young and recently trained.
• Brought in a master toolmaker to redesign the feeders and a control builder to reset the robotic accuracy and improve the uptime of the robots.
• Retrained the staff to do rolling changeovers so that multiple boards were on the line simultaneously, taking advantage of the flexible automation design.
• Did an analysis of the OEE and uptime of the line and put processes in place to increase the uptime to over 95%. Moved the robot transaction failure from 1 in 20, to 1 in 10,000.

Impact:

• Brought the tac time down to 8 seconds…tripling the output of the plant and making it the most profitable European component factory.
• Brought the uptime of the line to over 95%.
• Changed the profit line in this plant by over $30 Million a year.
• Allowed these improvements to be transferred to the US plant where 3 of these lines existed with the same set of problems…we did this work also, and saved this company over $100 Million per year as a consequence.

Success Stories
Story #3 Synopsis:
Rapid Design of Assembly Line

Problem:
An automotive electronics company wanted to install an ABS automated line into an existing European plant in a very shortened time period. Project Costs were increasing and yield concerns were being raised. The design of the line was very confusing and the reliability of the process and the line was a critical determinate of the economics of the line.

What We Did:

• We established a joint company task team that looked at all aspects of the product and the process…going out 3 years.
• We used BLMC’s World Class Manufacturing Metrics to define the basis of the design with respect to quality, setup, OEE and Uptime, distance, inventory residence, use of space, time for building the products and flexibility to handle different parts. With these metrics, we established the specification for the equipment and the manufacturing process within the walls of the plant.
• We engaged with the automation vendor early and helped complete the preliminary design in a 6 week period of time.
• We helped train the people on their work tasks for the new line.

Impact:

• We reduced the lead time to put this line in by 60% and the cost by over 30%.
• The line was installed quickly and was very reliable in uptime and process while encompassing a growing number of variations of the product.
• The plant became the main plant for both volume production and new product introduction.

Success Stories
Story #4 Synopsis:
Developing Economic Concepts in Automobile Electronics

Problem:
This automotive company was debating the cost of wire harnesses versus decentralized computing and wanted to have some sense of the breakeven point…since wire harnesses were over 50% of the cost of computing in the car.

What We Did:

• We set up a value engineering project looking at all of the functions of the electronics and the distribution of those functions… as well as the costs for those functions…and built a cost model.
• We looked at the future ideas around centralized and decentralized computing and used the value engineering model to cost out the variables in the concepts.

Impact:

• Determined that decentralized computing was more cost effective if it could be close to the function it was effecting and could be used to test the subsystem; otherwise it was more cost effective to centralize the computing….like the EEC module.
• This was one of the first logical conceptual conversations around Telematics in the car…the ability to test a subsystem before putting it into the car, and then test the system, and then the entire car. This set the design fabric for electronics in the car for the next 5 years.

Success Stories
Story #5 Synopsis:
Rapid Flexible Automation Design and Implementation

Problem:
This automotive component company wanted to put in a new automated line to build window raising systems and needed it in a few months, rather than the quoted 15 month lead-time and the $3 Million dollar price offered by conventional automation houses.

What We Did:

• Using the BLMC World Class Manufacturing Metrics, we defined a loose set of specs for the system and with the client, did a review of automation houses that could do the work.
• We asked one house to put together a project team consisting of a master tool maker, a control builder, a mechanical engineer and an electrical controls designer along with a project manager to develop a preliminary design that would be paid for by the client.
• We asked the client to put together a project team that would work with the automation house in defining the total environment for the design…and got both teams working on optimizing the design and the total processes…from parts in the door, to the feeding of the parts into the system, to the testing of the assembled product, to the shipment out the door, and the variation of designs going out several years.
• We completed the preliminary design in 6 weeks and the automation house bid on that design…got the bid and built it in 3 months.

Impact:

• The automation was up and running in 4.5 months at a price of less than $1 Million.
• The uptime of the equipment was on the order of 95% instead of the standard 75-85%.
• The quality of the product was on the order of 3 parts per million failed in the process.
• Everyone in the factory had ownership to the concepts of the design and made it a centerpiece of good assembly practice going forward.