Shop floor morale also improved because team members could communicate more effectively.

Sean Ebert
Group President, Madison Indoor Air Quality (MIAQ)

Segment Operations To Increase Line Capacity

Therma-Stor manufactures residential, agriculture and industrial dehumidifiers, as well as restoration equipment for dehumidification, air scrubbing, and evaporative drying.

For more information on this story, contact
Sean Ebert, Group President, Madison Indoor Air Quality (MIAQ): [email protected]

Goal
Therma-Stor had three market segments with different demand patterns that helped level out the peaks and valleys from seasonal demand trends. But each segment fought for capacity within a centralized assembly operation. Assembly was performed in a long, serialized fashion that consisted of 20 people and required a large footprint to support line-side material storage. In addition, the assembly lines had strong product “platform” association with limited flexibility to support increased capacity for any other “platforms.” Furthermore, there was no distinction between “As”/80s or “Bs”/20s anywhere on the shop floor. All SKUs were treated with the same urgency.

Process
Using Toyota lean principles and tools, Therma-Stor redesigned the traditional long and linear conveyor lines to support a U-shape cellular manufacturing concept that offered flexibility for capacity increases as needed. They also stabilized labor, creating core crews for specific products. Therma-Stor invested in new technology that improved critical quality processes and reduced the total footprint of each traditional production line. They also set up production lines dedicated to each business segment.

All employees were educated about the importance of “A” SKUs versus “B” SKUs. Therma-Stor made it visual, color-coding customer orders to distinguish between the two, ensuring that “B” SKUs were treated with
less urgency.

Therma-Stor reorganized operations support teams to focus on each market segment. They created dedicated value streams, each managed by a value stream manager and a team comprised of a dedicated quality technician and a manufacturing engineer to ramp up continuous improvement projects.

Finally, they completed product line and customer line simplification. Ultimately, this helped them transition from line-side material storage to a dedicated material delivery system, reducing the overall material footprint on a production line.

Results
Therma-Stor saw improvements in safety, product quality, and delivery performance which helped control costs. Shop floor morale also improved because team members could communicate more effectively on a U-shape line. With a line design that maximized production in a small amount of square footage, Therma-Stor increased line capacity by 30% and increased the number of lines for each segment.

Key Learnings

  • Go slow to go fast. We set up several trial-and-error production lines to perfect what we were trying to accomplish before scaling so we could ensure we had everything dialed in.
  • Create dedicated, focused teams to drive efficiency.
  • Ensure employees know the difference between “A” SKUs and “B” SKUs and treat “A” SKUs with more urgency.
  • Communicate and create visibility. You’ll be surprised how much this can transform the operation.
  • Change management can be hard, but stick with the plan. You can always tweak as you go.