“Drinking from a fire hose” is the vivid description R.K. Whitehead, President of Whitehead Die Casting in Gainesville, gives regarding how a 20 percent growth rate and shortened lead times from customers affected his company. “Our product is solid, but our internal operating system was out of date, resulting in inefficiencies. We needed to be nimble enough to meet customer requirements and we had to change our production philosophy to make that happen.”

A family owned business since the 1950’s, Whitehead manufactures custom aluminum and zinc die cast parts primarily for the lighting and construction industries. In the past, the company had 4 weeks lead time to produce work for customers. Over the last few years that time has gradually decreased. Currently, 70 percent of the company’s clients need a 2 to 14 day product turnaround.

Global competition – the ability of overseas companies to produce products quickly and cost effectively – is an issue in the manufacturing industry as a whole, explained R.K. “The world really is flat,” he said, a reference to “The World is Flat”, Thomas Friedman’s book about world economics. “I say we have to use our brains. Basically, work smarter not harder.”

To that end, R.K. began working with the Center of Innovation for Manufacturing Excellence (CIME). CIME, housed on the Lanier Technical College campus, provides direct services to manufacturers, including lean manufacturing training, to improve the efficiency, profitability and long-term viability of United States based companies.

Judy Parks and Tim Bala worked with the company to design a plan to create a more efficient operation. “We started with value stream mapping, a beginning point for the lean manufacturing process. We reviewed where our company is now and where we want to be,” said R.K. “The CIME staff helped us develop the framework for a more efficient work flow; once the areas of wasted effort and energy were identified, we started eliminating them, one by one.”

From creating more orderly, visual work areas to developing better systems for managing documents, the CIME team worked hand in hand with Whitehead to affect change. R.K. notes the company has made a lot progress and looks forward to continuing to implement lean concepts in every area of the organization.

“Our managers received training in the beginning, making them champions of the effort,” said R.K. Now, he reports a sense of orderliness as well as renewed enthusiasm among employees. Not to mention the ability to meet those shortened lead times with a quality product.