ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: S&C Electric Company: Lean in a High Variety, Low Volume Operation
Lea Tonkin, editor in chief
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| Daily meetings are part of leader standard work at S&C Electric Company. |
Lean changes that started 10 years ago as individual projects morphed into a dedicated lean approach, continuing to bring improvements and progress at S&C Electric Company. The Chicago-based company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011. The privately held company produces a wide variety of switchgear and other high voltage equipment for the electric utility, commercial building, and alternative power generation markets. Its sales in 2011 reached approximately $600 million. About 1,800 of S&C’s 2,500 employees work at the Chicago plant. Manufacturing encompasses two additional U.S. facilities and four international plants.
Visual management, 5S (maintenance and standardization) activities, parts “supermarkets,” and other lean improvements will be showcased in S&C’s plant tour during the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) Chicago “Inside Excellence” conference Oct. 15-19, 2012. Plant visitors at the company’s 48-acre Chicago campus will see raw metal machining, fabrication, assembly, and other production operations. The facility houses automated processes such as horizontal and vertical turning centers along with other fabrication, molding, and plating operations.
“Our Lean Performance System (LPS) is S&C’s version of lean that uses the basic principles and practices of the Toyota Production System,” said Bob Dempsey, Global Lean Performance System manager. “For example, one aspect of Toyota’s system that we are now employing is strategy deployment. That is helping us to focus and align activities throughout the company that lead to improvement in our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).”
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| Line employees in a 5S “deep dive” plan to rearrange a work area for better utilization of space. |
In S&C’s “model value stream” at the Chicago plant, LPS team members help leaders implement various lean methodologies. It also serves as a training ground for other S&Cers and as a model for lean progress in other S&C plants.
Sharing Knowledge and Success
Dempsey emphasized the importance of consistent communications in the organization’s continued performance improvement. “We are trying to get people to buy into needed changes at their own level,” he said. “When we are changing processes, we need to create awareness and knowledge, the desire for change, and the ability to make and reinforce the changes.” Through “LPS TV,” associates view progress in various work areas within the Chicago plant, learning about improvement steps and related savings/progress.
“We’ve learned that we need to include people at the heart of the operation in our improvement activities,” Dempsey said. “Initially we viewed lean projects as traditional engineering projects. Now we include everyone, which helps ensure the success of our activities.”
All employees reap the rewards from S&C’s lean progress. At the end of each quarter, the company shares 50 percent of related cost savings in payouts to employees.
