Haynes International July 09 www. bus- ex. com 67 F lying the globe on business or simply just taking a break, you may be travelling in a plane that is constructed and powered using high- performance alloys from Haynes International, Inc. These nickel and cobalt- based alloys have been developed for a wide variety of applications where corrosion resistance and high performance at extremely high temperatures are essential. Thus, Haynes' products can be found in the aerospace, chemical processing and pharmaceutical industries, oil and gas, environmental, ceramics, metalworking, automotive, electronics- the applications are numerous and growing. The bulk of Haynes' products are manufactured in Kokomo, Indiana, at an extensive one- million-square- foot facility spread over 247 acres. But for many years the plant has been struggling to improve its delivery performance record. When Scott Pinkham was appointed vice president- operations in March 2008, he set about making it happen. " We didn't start out aiming to do lean manufacturing," Pinkham explains. " With our type of operation- we don't have work cells, and materials travel miles around the facility- I really wasn't sure what would fit." In fact, Pinkham discovered from old records that lean consultants had been brought in 15 years earlier and had suggested changing the layout of the facility to achieve productivity gains. " They calculated that our material literally travels miles from the time we melt it to the time we ship it. But our equipment is large, installed on huge foundations and large pits. There's just no way that we can move or rearrange it." Instead, Pinkham set out to develop a new set of metrics that would help him identify areas that needed improvement and would also focus the staff on delivering products on time. For many years the company had been working to monthly targets, which required the manufacturing staff to complete orders by the end of the month and not by the date the customer required, " which led to some very bad behaviors and a poor delivery record," Pinkham says. So the first major change he made, with the help of Implementation Services, was to abandon the monthly targets and replace them with metrics that measured delivery performance on a weekly basis and shop- floor compliance to the schedule

Haynes International throughout the day. Targets were set up for on- time delivery, off-quality costs, safety, compliance to schedule, efficiency, work in process and semi- finished inventory. And the real- time results were displayed on what the company calls its digital cockpit- an intranet- based program developed by the in-house IT department that displays all the metrics in an easy- to- understand real- time format. " We've also set up individual metrics for key operations," he continues, " areas that might have the largest queue or carry the largest amount of work and process inventory behind them, areas that could end up being bottlenecks. We measure compliance to the schedule, efficiency in the operation and work in process, so we can look at the digital cockpit charts and see we're in control." If the operation is under control, the chart border is green; if it's out of control, it turns red, which then initiates an operational review meeting, where the staff members get together to analyze the cause of the failure and find solutions to the problem. Along with these new metrics, some of the more appropriate lean tools have been introduced. Elements of 5S- which helps cut waste by maintaining a clean and ordered environment with the necessary tools at hand- were introduced to some of the operational areas, and the kaizen blitz has also become an essential part of the company culture. Drawing together operational staff from the shop floor and management levels, the kaizen blitz is a single 68 www. bus- ex. com July 09