The current economic climate in Ireland, increasing costs and price shrinkage, is putting tremendous pressure on companies in the Irish Engineering Sector. This has come about as a result of Ireland’s small open economy where competition comes from all over the world. The Irish Engineering sector is a significant player in the overall context of the Irish economy with over 1,500 Engineering enterprises, including 190 multinational companies. Their activities range from aerospace technology, to materials handling and automotive components.
The Engineering sector has an aggregate turnover of over €10.3 billion, equating to 10% of manufacturing turnover in Ireland. Gross Value Added (GVA) for the sector is €3.5 billion, or 11% of GVA in manufacturing in Ireland. The sector employs over 70,000, or 25% of manufacturing employment.
As a result of the increased pressures brought about by ever increasing costs coupled with price shrinkage, policy recommendations from IBEC, Irish Engineering Enterprise Federation recommends the following 6 initiatives for its Engineering sector members:
- Invest in Management Development
- Invest in automation and new Technologies
- Invest in Research and Development
- Invest in Skills training
- Export facilitation
- Focus on business costs
Lean Business Systems can assist companies in the Engineering Sector to address these pressures through a programme of business review and evaluation coupled with leading your organisation through a Lean transformation. Many companies have already taken on this challenge and are well on the way to success. The programme lead by practitioners from Lean Business Systems will encompass an analysis of your business model together with a review of each step taken to fulfill your customer’s needs, from your customer’s point of view. This is followed by developing a “Future state map” together with a list of actions necessary to move the organization from “Current state” to an agreed “Future state”. By repeating the above actions on a regular basis, continuous improvement actions are regularly identified laying the foundations for developing a continuous improvement culture across your organization.
There are many tried and tested Lean tools being applied in Engineering companies around the world today. The specific tools to be deployed will depend on the strengths and weaknesses of the organization which under the guidance of the experts at Lean Business Systems will result in bringing about an amazing return on investment over a very short period of time. The typical tools deployed in transforming such companies to Lean include the following:
- Value Stream Mapping (VSM)
- Hoisin planning
- Kaizen events
- Eliminating waste (MUDA)
- Root cause analysis
- 5S workplace organisation
- Total productive Maintenance (TPM)
- Statistical process control
- Poka-Yoke
- Kanban Pull
- Visual techniques
- Design for Lean
- Lean Operations Game
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
Many other Lean tools are also available should the need arise to deploy them. There are many documented examples of successes at implementing Lean in Engineering companies however it is important to understand that for a truly successful and sustainable outcome, the culture of the organisation may need to be reviewed and revised. This can take considerable effort, time and professional guidance to successfully implement in a sustainable way.
Some of the Benefits of implementing Lean include;
- A significant portion of work carried out in a typical engineering company is unnecessary, avoidable or non-value adding
This can be at least 20 – 30% and as much as 50 – 60%
- Lean Thinking assists your team to identify and eliminating this waste
- Within the value added work there is also a degree of waste
- By using a holistic approach, assisted by Value Stream Mapping, a further 20 – 30% improvement is possible.
Lean Business Systems has extensive experience in this area and can take you through the many successes already achieved as a result of Lean deployments both in Ireland and Internationally. Lean Business Systems will provide you with a free assessment of your “Current state” together with an assessment of what it will take to transform your organization to Lean using the many tools at its disposal.
For further information please CLICK HERE.
[ BACK TO TOP ↑]
