Lowara Proves the Power of Lean
Lowara employees had already warmed up to Lean Manufacturing when Lou Giuliano threw more logs on the fire.
During a 2002 visit to the pump manufacturer's biggest plant in Montecchio, Maggiore, Italy, the head of ITT Industries was impressed. Lowara was adopting Lean as a way to strip their production processes of non-value added activities, and had set some serious stretch goals: improving productivity by 30 percent and cutting cycle time and scrap in half.
"They were excited about the prospect of change and thought they had a plan to do it," Giuliano later said.
Nevertheless - call it reverse psychology or healthy skepticism - Giuliano told plant officials before leaving, "I don't think what you're planning on doing is possible."
Spurred by the challenge, plant employees redoubled their improvement efforts. Today, only a year-and-a-half into their Lean Manufacturing initiative, they've already increased productivity up to 30 percent, improved quality by 50 percent on several production lines, and made great strides toward Fluid Technology's goal of cutting cycle time in half.
What triggered the turnaround? Three factors: Lean training across functions, a series of Kaizen blitzes and heavy emphasis on 5-S.
Daylong awareness workshops were followed by three weeks of in-depth Lean training. "Involving a significant number of our operations people in the training was the key to opening minds and breaking paradigms," says Franco Picone, Lowara's Value-Based Six Sigma champion.
Kaizen blitzes - intense improvement pushes completed within a compressed time fram - targeted areas such as just-in-time assembly and faster machinery set-up.
Adoption of the 5-S regimen (sort, straighten, sweep, schedule and sustain) created an orderly, efficient workspace for greater productivity and safety.
While proud of Lowara's progress, Picone sees them as "good preparation" for larger accomplishments on the horizon. "We're in the middle of our journey, not at the finish," he says. The keys to ongoing improvement? "Vision and persistence," he says.
For now, however, Lowara employees are entitled to say "We told you so." They made a believer of Lou Giuliano. Here's what he said at the Executive Forum earlier this year: "Well, lo and behold, this year as we looked at financial results and counted up the score … Lowara had doubled its inventory turns in the last three years. Something, by the way, I've heard a lot of people say is impossible."
Lowara's first Kaizen blitz applied Lean Manufacturing concepts to their DOMO pump assembly line. The just-in-time team leading the effort included (first row, l. to r.) Orietta Griffante, Luigi Costanzi, Franco Picone, Alberto Scarinci and (second row) Carmelo Marinelli, Enrico Cauduro, Oscar Chiementin, Ugo Da Pra, Alessandro Verza, Luigi Di Pastena and Piergiuseppe Albertini.