Re: MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Joerg wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


Joerg wrote:


Kanban may not be all that bad. Introduced something similar together
with a production manager. I have never understood the concept of
"kitting". It just doesn't make sense to me.



It does, when there is a base model with several, or even dozens of
variations. The base model is considered a component as far as
production planning is concerned. It is very useful for small runs and
quick turn job shops. More than once we had an emergency order from an
important customer, and could pull a complete radio together in under
two weeks, instead of the six week, or longer order cycle. Boards that
were already in production were diverted to the emergency order, and the
ones made for that radio would replace them. We generally shipped
everything at least two weeks early, so the delay was never seen by the
customers.

At one point we had almost 100 base chassis in the production
stockroom, so all we needed was the IF and tuner modules, plus any
options, and that customer's EPROM for the front panel. that way, 90%
of the system assembly work was done before it hit final assembly. A
month or so later, most of them were gone, and we were back to a few in
stock. that extra stock let us claim an early delivery bonus from a
large contract. If the design wasn't kitted, we would have never made
it, and the bonus was $500,000.


In your type of design it wouldn't be very useful.


Many of my designs are similar. Big ultrasound machines with lots of
options to pick from. With or without Doppler, ColorFlow, various disk
drive sizes, filter modules for different transducers and so on. All our
large systems are custom-configured, there is no such thing as standard
models like you have with cars on dealer lots. Still the Kanban-style
pull system was a lot better than kitting. Less inventory, less shop
space need, plus lots of saving in labor since nobody was kitting
anymore. So we left it to the floor manager to determine the number of
starts. They were also allowed to pull whatever they thought they needed
from stock, whenever they needed it. Of course this require a decent MRP
system to stay on top of the stock forecasting.



Some contracts were for delivery over a number of years, to replace
older equipment. The kitting allowed the required parts to be reserved,
so that all the units were identical. We had several hundred
variations, plus some customer specific modifications. The MRP package
tied all of the departments together seamlessly. We ahd over 200 people
at that plant, with over 100 different jobs running at once, and it
worked for us. It replaced a cumbersome and mistake prone card file
system.


For older system support we had service inventory. It was physically in the same stockroom as the rest but Service could enter hold qties. Of course they had to watch that inventory was at a reasonable level just like all the other departments had to.



There was initially some resistance because kitting seems to be the
usual scenario in the US. But when leadtimes did not get worse and cost
went down big time people began to like it. Special order leadtimes
actually shrunk because system production never had to wait anymore for
a kitting session to complete. They could start building right when the
order bell rung. Yes, we did have a big old ship's bell that was rung
whenever Sales called in a firm order. Could be heard clear across the
parking lot ;-)



A board or module level was considered as 'Kitted'. The only time we
actually kitted a board order for an outside assembly of VME SMD boards.
We sent out $80,000 worth of parts and got back ten very poorly made
boards that needed $10,000 worth of rework to salvage. The board house
claimed they used PickNPlace, but different boards had wrong parts in
different places, some of the ICs were installed with the wrong
orientation, and the paste solder they used looked like it was ten years
old. Lots of scaly joints with slag and balls all over the place. I had
to reflow thousands of bad joints on each board, but I managed to
salvage all but one, because of damage they did to the PC board. It was
framed and hung in the ME office to show to anyone who suggested they
try it in the future. I wanted the name of the company that screwed it
up to be put on a brass plate, but they were too chicken to do it. All
I know is that the crappy work was done by a board house was in Orlando,
Florida.


My clients pretty much all do it the same way. No kitting. They send the whole set of parts over, boards get stuffed and the balance of parts comes back with the stuffed boards. Last round was at WD Burch here in CA and they did a great job again. Plugged the board (new design) in and it worked.


The bell was over the head of production's desk, but they only rang
it for million dollar orders, or when they had bad news. You KNEW that
when they offered a 'free lunch', something had hit the fan.


No free lunches out here when something hit the fan ;-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE
    ... with a production manager. ... production planning is concerned. ... that extra stock let us claim an early delivery bonus from a ... Still the Kanban-style pull system was a lot better than kitting. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE
    ... with a production manager. ... production planning is concerned. ... that extra stock let us claim an early delivery bonus from a ... pull system was a lot better than kitting. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE
    ... I thought kitting meant just that -- sending in all parts and getting the ... stuff that wasn't needed back to the stock room. ... These I bought before the design was complete to insure I had a buildable design. ... Either a prototype or test fixture, where only a few are made, or production, where I had nothing to do with the manufacturing end. ...
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  • Re: MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE
    ... Michael A. Terrell wrote: ... comes back with the stuffed boards. ... I thought kitting meant just that -- sending in all parts and getting the ... stuff that wasn't needed back to the stock room. ...
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