Business Excellence at Tortube using Fourth shift How Tortube got the most from their implementation of Fourth Shift

by Phil Robinson (BPIC) - Comments to : phil@bpic.co.uk
URL : http://www.bpic.co.uk

You really get a buzz from visiting a company that is making real improvements to their operations.  The changes at Tortube are interesting as, like so many companies, they had to contend with serious disruptions to their business, mainly caused in their case by the strong pound, in the middle of their Business Excellence project.

Jargon Warning If this case study uses terms with which you are unfamiliar, you can look them up in the Jargon Buster at http://www.bpic.co.uk/jargon.htm. For more details see Business Excellence (ISBN 0-952-8885-05) by Phil Robinson.

Tortube was formed in 1974 to service the requirements for precision manipulated tubes and fabrications used in domestic gas cookers and boilers. During the intervening years they have expanded into heating, motor, aerospace, vending and leisure industries where the need for quality is paramount. They now supply to many European household names.  Tortube are in the forefront of tube manipulation technology and encourage their customers to utilise their expertise when designing new products.

Tortube implemented the PC based software planning package "FourthShift" in mid 96.  They soon became aware that they were not getting the improvements in their business performance expected from this very competent planning package.  They felt like they were carting around a full set of golf clubs but only using the 7 iron and the putter!

Tortube had implemented Fourth Shift very quickly, in about 6 months, and in general it was being used in the way they had wanted but somehow it had not made much of a change to their business performance.  There was still too much inventory in the factory, too many orders missed their due date, the production equipment was sometimes idle and sometimes overloaded and it was difficult to be confident that delivery promises were realistic and achievable.

I first met Martin Doney, Tortube’s Managing Director, in February 1997 when he came to a Business Link open day held at Contico in North Devon where I gave a short talk about the Business Excellence principles and how they were helping Contico.  Martin was quick to realise that these principles would also help at Tortube.

Their improvement project started with a 1 day Business Excellence review. I sent Martin a list of what I would be looking for in advance so that the managers could collate the necessary information.  I also asked Martin to get 20 bills of material checked for accuracy and the inventory record accuracy checked on 20 parts.

The review day was hectic but everyone was helpful, frank and honest about their strengths and weaknesses.  The main areas that I felt prevented Tortube getting the most out of Fourth Shift were :

1)  The lack of a sales and operations planning process linked to a Master Production Schedule that is managed out to the cumulative lead time.

2)  More accurate data was needed.  7 of the inventory records of the 20 parts checked were incorrect and none of the bills of material were complete let alone accurate.

3)  Some of the Fourth Shift action messages were not being actioned, in particular they were releasing works orders and purchase orders but the re-schedule messages were not actioned.

4)  Manufacturing needed more discipline, they were not keeping to the order quantities and due dates were not being met.  Planning was just trying to keep up with what was happening.

An education programme was started in April 1996 and rapidly showed improvements.  Inventory record accuracy on raw material and components shot up to 100% on a control group of 100 parts in 4 weeks and on all the stock soon after.  Master Production Scheduling was put in place out to the cumulative lead time giving a dramatic improvement to the information quality for both the factory and the purchase of raw material.

The factory floor was transformed.  Gone were most of the large tote bins carrying an indeterminate amount of work in progress.  In came small bins on wheels.  Flexible manufacturing cells were organised and equipment moved to improve the flow of work.  Where one piece of equipment was needed for a number of jobs, it was put on wheels and moved to where it was needed.  Some cell leaders were involved in planning new cells, leading to not only an excellent layout but also an increased sense of ownership in the new layout.

It was really unfortunate that just as the project was gathering momentum, a strengthening of the pound against other European currencies caused a downturn in export business that had to be responded to.  There had to be personnel cut backs with the inevitable disruption to the improvements process.

Most of the gains are still paying dividends, however, and improvements in the factory continue.  Martin says he now feels he is able to respond much better to his customers and has an improved understanding of what he is and is not able to achieve.

Tortube has been able to make a significant reduction to the safety stock they had built up to protect themselves against the vagaries of their former production methods.  This by itself more than paid back the investment in education.

Tortube have also continued to improve their use of Fourth Shift. Invoicing, for instance, now takes less than one person instead of more than two.  They are able to close out their months in a fraction of the time that it took them before.

Few projects run smoothly from start to finish and Tortube’s project is no exception.  I found it invigorating visiting them not just because of the improvements I saw over the 12 months since my first visit but because everywhere there was a hunger to continue the improvement process and a clear, common vision of how to do it.