Case Studies

Lead Time Reduction

Type of Industry:	Electronics
Company:	SME
Duration (total / actual consulting days):	6 Months / 23 Days
Company Targets:	Improvement of delivery performance; cost reduction
Results:	Reduction of lead time from 116 days (average) to 2 days; 100% delivery performance

Product: electric power switch
Production consists of five working steps
The lead time from start of production to shipment is 116 days (average); actual time for assembly is 174 seconds (value-adding time)

Investment in new equipment to reduce the actual production time of 174 seconds even further.

Elimination/Reduction of non-value adding steps (waste) within the process; no investment in technical equipment; reduction of lead time in total.

Recording every single process step
Recording of all process related activities including their respective time segments
Conduction of a value stream analysis (VSA)
Identification of wastes and bottlenecks based on the VSA and other sources
Development of the target value stream design (VSD)
Development of a masterplan for implementing the new value stream design
Implementation of the value stream design according to the masterplan
Checking the measures’ effectiveness
Updating SOP´s (standard operation procedures)
Go live

Lead time from start of production to shipment: 2 days (instead of 116 days)

Reliability of delivery performance significantly improved (100%)

Development of new customers due to short delivery times and high delivery performance compared to other competitors.