Pull Systems

Russell White, CEO of Green Grass, a vinyl fence manufacturer is dealing with a lot of issues with his company. He has reached out to discuss how he can improve his business. Green Grass has a competitive advantage that it ships out orders in just 3 days. He does not want to lose the competitive advantage. He is unable to meet customer demand but he realizes that he is putting too much burden on the resources. His operators are logging over time of 25 hours per week. Because the quality of the products detected at the end of the line is only 69%, workers have to do a lot of rework. Batch production is the norm at Green Grass. There are 10 workers that work on the line. Every operator has his or her own way of doing work. They are focused on just their part of the production. The workers are unaware of the whole process. The demand for the fence during peak season is 35 per week. The lead time to make one product is 28 hours. The hours of operation are from 8am-4pm, 5 days a week. As a lean expert, walk me through the approach you will take to help Mr. White and his company.

Q1. Write the problem statement. Use pictures to describe the problem statement.

Q2. What advice will you give Mr. White so he can understand the current state of the process? What should be the pace of production? What tool will you use to provide the big picture of the process?

Q3. You know that Green Grass does batch production. Mention 2 disadvantages of batching? What would be your approach for moving from batch production to one-piece flow?

Q4. White is new to lean manufacturing. Explain to him what a Kanban is. Mention 2 advantages of using Kanban? Mention 2 ground rules for using Kanban.