Manufacturing
Lean Manufacturing has forced excess capacity out of many manufacturing plants, reduced inventories, and forced plants to increase flexibility. In the middle, managers are compelled to change employee schedules – often at the last minute – to match production cycles. Not only do employees routinely bear the brunt of the negative results that come from last minute changes, corporate profit margins shrink in response to the hidden, frequently unmeasured costs inherent in poorly thought out decisions.
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Traditional scheduling techniques usually match demand in 40-hour increments, no longer offering the flexibility or scheduling predictability needed in today’s business environment to protect profits. A single day shift, followed by an afternoon shift, then a night shift, and finally a fourth shift for a 24 x 7-day operation is the typical schedule implementation path followed by growing companies. Consequently, when the workload expands or decreases beyond these 40-hour increments, managers are forced to find their own solutions to solve the problem.
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Coleman Consulting Group designs solutions that take into account day-to-day changes, seasonality, and the long term needs of the business. At Coleman Consulting Group we understand it is not about a shift length or a day on or day off pattern. For the business, it is about matching the demand at the lowest cost; and for the employee, it is about predictable solutions that fit their family and social life.
Typical cost savings in manufacturing plants include:
Capital Utilization
Reducing Sanitation & Cleaning Costs
7 Day Operations
Adjusting with Seasonality
BEST Equipment Strategy
Reducing Idle Time & Overtime
Minimizing Breakdowns & Shutdowns
TESTIMONIALS
"Our implementation approach was a turning point. I guess that was the first thing union and management ever worked out and talked about outside the contract. We didn’t do the schedule change at contract time; we did it while we had a contract. It opened up the avenues of communication, and the relationship with management actually has gotten better and better. I think you need to keep your schedule change off the bargaining table because it’s a complicated process. There are too many details that you have to get right. Trying to do it all during negotiations would be difficult and would cloud the whole bargaining process."
Clyde Williams / President / Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 15
"The financial outcomes of the scheduling project turned all skeptics into believers. An implementation process that carefully blends business needs, employee desires and health and safety generated a 16% increase in labor productivity."
Bill Gentes / CFO / Lane Press