Shortening production time by 14 days for a plant in Kielce
A review of the operational model allowed for the removal of bottlenecks in the paint shop and faster shipments to customers.
The owner of a plant in Kielce was losing customers because deadlines were constantly shifting. Production was stagnant, even though people worked two shifts. We entered the floor to count the real working time of each machine.
The challenge
In August 2023, the average time from order to shipment was 38 days. The biggest problem was the paint shop, where elements waited in line for an average of 9 days. Due to poor organization, as much as 11% of finished parts required painting corrections because of dust on the hall. The company froze 440,000 PLN in inventory that sat in aisles and blocked forklift movement. Customers began to cancel orders because competitors delivered goods in three weeks.
Our approach
Złoty Standard Marketing sent two analysts to the site. For 4 days we walked around the hall in Kielce with a sheet and a stopwatch. We measured that employees lost 114 minutes a day just looking for tools and moving empty pallets. We checked energy invoices and gas consumption in the paint shop. We focused on hard data, not on what the shift supervisor says. We found 4 places where the process simply stood still for no reason.
The solution
We abandoned paper routing slips in favor of simple magnetic boards at each station. We moved the grinding stations 12 meters closer to the paint shop, which eliminated unnecessary transport. We installed a new dust curtain for 18,400 PLN, which immediately improved the coating quality. We introduced a rule: no pallet can stay in the aisle for more than 30 minutes. The entire reorganization of the hall layout took us one weekend, so as not to interrupt the work of the plant.
Results
Five months after implementing the changes, the plant ships finished goods in 24 days instead of 38. Production profitability jumped because the number of complaints and corrections dropped drastically.
Timeline
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September 2023Work time measurements and audit of losses on the production hall.
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October 2023Change of station layout and installation of dust extraction systems.
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December 2023Implementation of a visual order control system.
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February 2024Final verification of financial and time results.
"Złoty Standard Marketing didn't theorize. They came into the hall in dirty boots, counted everything, and showed us where we were wasting money. We regained two weeks of time in every order."