Japanese manufacturers are well known for their efficient manufacturing techniques. One of the cornerstones of this efficiency is their adoption of the kaizen manufacturing philosophy. The kai (change) and zen (good) way of looking at things was the basis that a selected team at Wika South Africa applied when looking at methods to improve their manufacturing processes.
In the span of one week a U-shaped manufacturing line was installed for six of the most important pressure gauge models in accordance with kaizan one-piece flow principles. This replaced the batch manufacturing process used at Wika prior to kaizen.
The change in manufacturing processes had the following immediate and measurable results:
The simple effectiveness and the efficiencies derived from a kaizen one-piece flow manufacturing line were so evident that Wika plans to change the South African manufacturing processes for all other pressure gauges, mechanical thermometers, thermocouples, RTDs, thermowells and diaphragm seals to this concept.
For more information contact Ralf Hesse (kaizen process officer), Wika Instruments, +27 (0)11 621 0000, [email protected], www.wika.co.za
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