Management Dynamics, INC.

OPERATING PROBLEMS: Company was not producing enough product to meet demand. Prior to the start of the project, on time production was only 20% of schedule. New products made up 30% of each year’s production. New product documentation was incomplete and inaccurate, resulting in significant scrap and rework. These inefficiencies caused serious delays in bringing new products to market ahead of competition.

PROJECT APPROACH: Reviewed front end of the production process. Area consisted of seven automated insertion lines for attaching components to printed circuit boards. It was decided that a "Focused Factory" approach supported by "High Performance Work Teams" would yield the type of rapid response manufacturing required. Equipment was reconfigured and products were assigned new routings. All operators were cross-trained on all equipment. New set up procedures were developed and material control functions were updated to improve run times.

RESULTS: Order backlog reduced from 400 orders to zero. Machine utilization increased by 100%. Throughput increased by 95%. Total project savings equaled $9.9 million.

	OPERATING PROBLEMS: Because of excellent growth and profits (20-25% per year) for the prior five years, company believed they had outgrown their current organizational structure and supporting methods and procedures for controlling work and for achieving a desired Six Sigma level of quality throughout the organization.
	PROJECT APPROACH: Shorten the product development cycle from concept to delivery to the customer and to get a defect free modem to the customer in the shortest possible time frame. Install Project Management controls in the Engineering Department and decrease Engineering Change Orders (ECO’s) which had been adversely impacting the Manufacturing Department. Initiate techniques to eliminate bottlenecks, improve product flow and dramatically speed up the decision making process throughout the entire organization.
	RESULTS: Reduced average product cycle time from 8 weeks to 2 weeks at the same relative volume. Reduced order delinquencies from $2-3 million to under $100,000. Quality went from 4.0 Sigma to 5.0 Sigma (25% improvement). Inventory reduced 23%. Savings achieved, $2,950,000.

OPERATING PROBLEM: In 1987, company won the U.S. Senate Productivity Award, besting some 8,000 companies in the competition. In spite of their productivity efforts, company began to fall behind in filling domestic and international orders, even though they were working 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.

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