The situation
Five hundred people. Seven shifts. Nineteen nationalities. Assembly output not moving.
Three years of data showed assembly routinely planned at up to twice the available headcount, with excessive changeovers. The operation needed a new floor layout, a new planning system and a new operating model.
2×
Assembly planned against available headcount
The outcome
120%
Output increase, 22K to 48K units/day
99%
Backorders cut, $1.85M to $24K
How it happened
- Led a combined maintenance, warehouse, engineering and CI team
- Replaced roughly 40 line-side component racks with a controlled component library and water-spider replenishment
- Converted circular lines to linear flow with dedicated staging; output up 20% per line overnight
- Inventory and commingling errors down 95%; wasted motion eliminated
- Defined capacity and capability controls; moved from hour-by-hour scheduling to monthly planning with weekly control limits
- Headcount 150 to 72 while output more than doubled; stocking positions restored on key items within weeks
- Workforce took ownership of the new model and executed without management dependency
- Layout redesign
- Component library
- Water spider
- Capacity planning
- Control limits