Manufacturing Consulting

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As a Manufacturing Consultant we work with our clients on lean systems, quality and yield improvement, process improvement, planning and problem solving, and we help clients develop the skills and knowledge to reduce waste and control cost. We often help clients plan and implement projects. As a manufacturing consultant, we give advice, teach skills, and work closely with our clients to produce practical results and enhance cost reduction thinking.

LEAN MANAGEMENT CONSULTING

Many organizations have embraced Lean Management, or some variant, to improve their operating performance.  In simplest terms Lean Management is an operating philosophy designed to focus on what customer’s value and to help managers eliminate unnecessary waste.  It fosters a continuous process improvement mind set. While fairly simple when viewed in these terms, it is difficult to implement and sometimes gets confused or patched together with other problem-solving methods (like Six Sigma Management and Kaizen.) While eliminating waste from processes is arguably a universal goal, rigidly following lean flow principles is sometimes difficult in project and batch-oriented environments.  Our Lean consulting experts work with organizations to sort out the complexities of lean process improvement and help build the appropriate management infrastructure and toolkit to drive continuous improvement.

Improving Lean Management Discovery & Analysis

For our Lean consulting services, we look at your product family work streams and identify where value is added where it is lost.  We look at how work flows through your operation and review how you currently plan, schedule, execute and measure output. We assess what parts of the value stream are suitable for push or pull scheduling techniques. We also look at how your managers control and react to waste and process variation and what tools they have to drive Lean process improvement. Understanding the flow, control system, and management behavioral gaps helps us build specific linkages between your financial and operational performance, and quantify potential improvement.

QUALITY & YIELD IMPROVEMENT CONSULTING

Manufacturing and other production-focused businesses commonly experience some degree of defects or waste in their production processes. In those environments where material costs are a significant percentage of the overall cost of goods sold (COGS), the cumulative effect of waste and low yields can have a significant impact on your profitability. That’s where quality management consulting pays off.

Overall Quality and Yield Improvement

The cost of quality in many organizations can be significant. There are costs associated with trying to ensure production processes conform to standard (e.g. design, testing, control) and there are costs associated when they don’t (e.g. equipment breakdowns, rework, service recovery). Material yield improvement requires understanding where quality issues or yield loss occurs throughout the production process, which can be elusive and difficult to assess. We begin our process by breaking down your processes into value streams and measuring material loss where it occurs. By developing this value stream model, we are able to isolate and quantify the impact of addressing specific quality/yield issues. This provides a focus for where effort should be invested in the project. We work with you to identify the key underlying causes (e.g. product design, raw material procurement, process design, equipment maintenance, process skills) and determine the financial impact. In order to uncover quality/yield issues, our consultants go on the shop floor with your teams, watching and learning by observation and point-of-execution studies. This focused observation allows us to identify breakdowns in existing processes, management systems, and behaviors that are resulting in defects, waste and lower yields.

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT CONSULTING

As your operations grow and become more complex—and customers become more demanding—existing processes and systems may break down. Having a clear understanding of the demand patterns of your business, and coordinating your resources to adequately service that demand is challenging under the best of circumstances. Doing so while maintaining profitability and customer satisfaction requires a keen understanding of your operating constraints and management’s ability to react to demand fluctuations. 

We will work closely with your management team to uncover operating problems and implement performance initiatives and process re-engineering that deliver measurable improvements in service, profitability and cash flow. 

Improving Process Productivity and Service

At one time or another, most businesses struggle with problems caused by breakdowns in planning mechanisms, operating processes, and organizational behaviors that need improvement. Our process re-engineering services are designed to quickly help you determine your current and potential processing capacities, and identify the constraints that restrict volume throughput, drive up costs, or damage service.

Discovery & Analysis

We begin our process by breaking down your profit picture into revenue and cost drivers that connect the financial world with your operating environment. We also examine what service criteria are important to various customer segments and how service levels impact your resource requirements. Understanding the key underlying service, revenue, and cost drivers helps us build specific linkages between your financial and operational performance.

Development

We will be on the ground working directly with your people, observing and quantifying the impact of day-to-day operating problems. This focused observation allows us to help identify breakdowns in existing business processes, management systems, and behaviors that are hindering productivity, and to uncover the root causes of performance problems that aren’t always readily apparent. We collaborate with you to establish current performance gaps and identify what specific improvements need to be implemented.

CO-MANUFACTURING CONSULTING

As you have developed a product we understand how difficult it can be to have your product made. We have a clear understanding as to how difficult the search for a co-manufacturer (co-packer) can be. We have a vast list of companies that provide these services.

Discovery, Analysis & Development

First, we investigate which category best fits your product.  Then we will analyze the best possible companies to produce your product. We will then set up meetings to introduce your product to the co-manufacturer and begin the discussion on producing. The last step in this process is to negotiate a contract that is suitable for both parties. After a successful match we can then move on to monitor the process, quality, and cost savings for your company.

Project Management

Products must quickly enter the market, be high quality, have the right features, and be priced appropriately to build and retain customer loyalty.  Market demands force manufacturers to not only evaluate their products, but continually improve their supply chains, manufacturing operations, and facilities.  

As a project management consultant, we advise on and execute manufacturing initiatives from the shop floor to the boardroom. We take a comprehensive view of each initiative, ensuring that all operational facets and stakeholders are understood and acknowledged.  By applying the leadership necessary to motivate your teams toward a common objective, we expertly manage cross-functional teams that may have disparate agendas.

Discovery, Analysis & Development

Professional project management is an invaluable tool in facilitating the delivery of your manufacturing initiatives.  Before you start your project, we work with you to assess if the chosen initiative is fiscally and strategically prudent and will achieve desired outcomes.  Project management tools and techniques, including risk management, ensure that quality standards are met and the time to market is efficient.  We blend professional project management skills with expertise in methodologies such as lean manufacturing to lead completion of your initiatives better, faster, and cheaper.