Examples of Kaizen improvements in the factory - before and after

Kaizen is a continuous improvement methodology incorporating multiple practical applications like 5S, value-stream mapping, fishbone diagrams, spaghetti diagrams, Pareto charts, control charts, and the Shewhart PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle. However, at its core, Kaizen is ultimately about fostering an environment where employees and management are motivated to improve where they work, how they work, and how work flows from one step to the next.   

Make enough small improvements, and your company will achieve substantial returns like stronger product quality, improved workflow, reduced waste, and increased efficiency. While this might all sound theoretical, there are real-world Kaizen examples where companies have transformed workspaces and achieved incredible results – and the tool they use is Flexpipe.

Workspace Efficiency and Flexpipe

Throughout its lifetime, your manufacturing business will most likely experience periods of rapid growth, followed by brief lulls before growing/expanding again. That continuous change requires an efficient workspace solution that can adjust and change as needed. This is exactly what the Flexpipe solution allows.  

Given that the very nature of Kaizen is continuous improvement – coupled with the fact that manufacturing is never static or stationary – a modular, low-cost, scalable solution is needed that allows your employees to design, assemble, and change workspaces/workstations as needed.  

These workspaces can’t be welded. They can’t be fixed structures and they can’t be haphazardly made with suspect materials like wood. These workspaces must be flexible, scalable, and comprised of durable, high-strength materials.   

The Flexpipe’s steel tube and joint system is like an erector set. It is a modular and scalable workspace solution that allows you to design, assemble, change, modify, and adjust workspaces. This increased flexibility is the perfect solution for lean manufacturing/Kaizen environments and their continuous improvement efforts.

Flexpipe in Action: Workspaces Before and After

There are multiple real-world examples of how companies/manufacturers have used Flexpipe to workspaces into extremely efficient, safer, and more functional workspaces. These new Flexpipe workspaces provide employees with increased flexibility, and ideal space, and eliminate wasted movements so often associated with poorly conceived and poorly designed workspaces.

In the example above, a large cabinet manufacturer – that had adopted lean manufacturing – decided it needed to improve its workspaces by doing away with its welded, heavy, and hard-to-navigate workbenches and workstations. By using the Flexpipe modular and scalable solution, this manufacturer created a much safer, more ergonomically friendly workspace which helped to reduce trips, falls, and stumbles.  

This new Flexpipe workspace allowed the manufacturer to increase their 5S score from 64 percent to 75 percent, representing a 17 percent improvement. They were also able to reduce the average distance traveled by employees within the workspace – for each unit assembled – from 180 feet to 18 feet, representing an astonishing 90 percent waste reduction. The operator no longer had to walk around the welded bench or bend over the side to get critical parts.

Another example of how a welded workbench and permanent shadow board did not allow the manufacturer to make any layout changes without incurring a substantial amount of wasted time and labor. This example comes from a corrugated packaging company that experienced high amounts of wasted time due to misplaced tools, consumables, and spare parts. 

By adopting 5S principles – and using Flexpipe’s steel tubes and joints – the company was able to create a mobile-capable workspace where every tool, consumable, and spare part had a proper place. A simple solution of incorporating Flexpipe casters in the design of this workstation eliminates all the wasted time and labor required to move the workbench. Whereas two people were needed before – one is needed now and without any strain involved.

The example above comes from a manufacturer of retail refrigerated merchandisers. At this manufacturing location, efficiency was seen as a critical requirement. Unfortunately, their workspaces were large, heavy structures that didn’t fully adopt the essentials of 5S. Parts and consumables went missing, work instructions and BOM were misplaced, and operators often retained critical tools that could be used by co-workers – as evidenced by the two hand-held cordless drills on the workbench.  

By using Flexpipe, this manufacturer designed a 5S workspace that was cleaner, more compact, easier to see, and had proper placement locations for parts, consumables (fasteners), and tools. Visibility increased substantially and critical parts and consumables were no longer stashed away in underutilized, hidden drawers. This represented huge savings in movement and time as employees always followed 5S end-of-day practices by putting everything away in its proper place.

Flexpipe Steel Tubes and Joints: Your Ideal Kaizen Workspace Solution

Empowering your employees to be their best in a Kaizen environment so they reduce waste and make improvements requires giving them the tools they need to succeed. Those tools must be easy-to-use, simple, and straightforward and allow your employees to make a real difference.

Flexpipe is that all-important tool for workspace optimization and efficiency.

To learn how Flexpipe can help your manufacturing facility adopt Kaizen and lean manufacturing solutions that reduce the costs of each of your workspaces, contact us now.