How manufacturers can increase customer happiness

A secret to manufacturing company success is customer happiness. And what's one major factor that contributed to customer happiness? Lead times. Reducing lead times means eliminating waste on the production floor. Developed by Toyota, the Lean system helps manufacturers do just that.

In his blog post "Implementing lean manufacturing principles on the the plant floor: a case study," Apex International CEO David Goldberg reveals how he made his manufacturing company more efficient. 

Goldberg and his team identified key areas for improvement:

1. Growing past due orders
2. Decreased customer confidence/satisfaction
3. High employee frustration  
4. High waste costs
5. Inadequate process execution
6. Poor asset utilization
7. High overhead costs
8. Long cycle times

​​They also setup goals including:

1. Increase sales by 10 percent
2. Reduce overhead per unit costs by 50 percent
3. Cut cycle times in half
4. Achieve 100 percent on-time delivery
5. Achieve record-high customer and employee satisfaction

How they eliminated waste

1. Reduced changeover times
2. Held monthly events for rapid improvement
3. Arranged equipment, supplies, and employees in cells for continuous flow
4. Value stream mapped current states of production to identify waste

Results

1. Delivery and productivity improvements
2. Fewer documentation errors
3. 60 percent less inventory, which opened up room for growth
4. Higher employee morale and customer happiness