4 – 8 Weeks
5 – 7 Months
|
Industry: |
Global Utility Vehicles OEM |
||
|
Company Size: |
60,000+ |
||
|
Project Location: |
Germany/China
|
||
|
Problem Statement: |
As part of a company wide cost reduction program, our client asked us to investigate the wheel-loader counterweight assembly process in their German manufacturing facility. High union labor costs, excess material movements to and from the external paint shop as well as frequent defects accumulated to completely unacceptable costs per unit. If those costs could not be drastically reduced, the client would shut down the counterweight assembly at their German site and supply preassembled units from Japan.
|
||
|
Meeting: |
High level understanding of counterweight supply chain and assembly process
|
||
|
Deep Dive: |
Map counterweight supply chain and material flows (including external suppliers and paint shop) as basis to perform gaps and inefficiency analysis
|
||
|
Hypothesis: |
Outsourcing of counterweight assembly process to non-union labor paint shop and delivery of preassembled counterweights to wheel-loader assembly line ("plug and play") to drastically reduce transportation and labor costs per unit
|
||
|
Project: |
2 consultants 10 weeks |
||
|
Deliverables: |
Non-union labor paint shop staff trained on counterweight assembly process
Reduction of assembly costs by 39% Quality performance >98% during pilot phase Reduction of transportation costs by 34% |
||
|
Bottom Line Impact: |
Annual labor cost savings >$0.6 M
Annual freight savings >$0.2 M |
||
Process Cost Reduction
