Jeff Bond, left, and Jim Arthurs look at ICI’s flow chart that helped cut processing times from four weeks to five days.
When Jeff Bond became director of plant operations at newly reorganized Institutional Casework Inc. in Paris, Tenn., he oversaw the development of a new manufacturing layout, redoing completely what had been an inefficient operation, with stacks of work in process. Bond’s first request: a large table to start making the physical layout chart.
Bond produced a large and detailed plant layout that today covers most of a wall in his office and shows each machine’s footprint and connecting conveyors so the linear, one-piece flow could be demonstrated. The payoff: ICI cut the time from material going into saw to delivery from four weeks to five days.
“We conveyorized the facility so the pieces are always moving down the line,” says Jim Arthurs, president and CEO. “Whatever conversion is done to that piece, it continuously flows. Before, we had conveyors, dollies, and mountains of material. Each work station did their own thing.”