process
01
02
leaning out of the window
a look at the use of lean manufacturing in the
australian window industry
issue the production information – the snail
still wins!
Why is this you ask? It’s simple – the product
or information follows a stop-start process
whereas the snail simply keeps following the
same path but does not need to stop.
bob carter
CEO, Glass Skills Australia
L
ean Manufacturing concepts and
systems have been around for many
years in the manufacturing and
assembly industries, yet the windows and
doors sector tends to lag behind in the
application of these tools.
In this article, we explore how Australian
window and door manufacturers can
improve their productivity and profitability
using lean thinking.
Imagine that a snail entered your factory at
the same time as a sheet of glass or length
of aluminium profile. Which one would
leave the factory first if they both followed
your normal product flow? Think about
the process of storage, cutting, punching,
fabrication, glazing, final assembly and
dispatch for any window or door, or even
a single sheet of glass. The snail is always
faster than the product flow!
Now consider the same snail racing your
paperwork from the time you receive an
enquiry to the time you close the sale and
28 Australian Window Association
When was the last time you challenged the
processes in your factory? We’re not talking
about the value adding tasks here. Most
companies look to speed up the task, but
few challenge the time between the tasks,
which is where the real opportunities are.
Lean Manufacturing is a combination of tools
and techniques that were developed during
World War II, and were made famous by
the Japanese automotive sector. They have
subsequently been refined over the years
to become a powerful tool for productivity
improvement and innovation in the
workplace. Applied properly, lean tools and
techniques can make a significant difference
in the performance of your factory simply by
focusing on optimising the flow of material
and information in the workplace.
5s process:
sort
Set in order
point of use storage
shine
standardise
sustain
Many companies start with a process known
as ‘5S’ – five steps to improve a work area
(don’t forget the office – sometimes there are
more gains in an office process than in the
factory).
1. sort
The first step is to remove any unnecessary
items in the workplace. This is known as
Sort.
2. Set in order
Once you have removed the clutter you can
start to find a home for what is left. This is
known as Set in Order.
3. Point of use storage
Efficiency is improved if you implement a
Point of Use Storage system - reducing the
need to move your feet to find things.
Here’s where this makes a difference – I was
recently in a window factory in Melbourne
and asked an operator to show me what he
had to do to place a sash and fittings into a
window frame. We timed the process and
counted the steps the operator took to
complete the task, 80 steps in all. 80 steps
is approximately equal to 80 seconds and
he did this task at least 100 times a day.
Now the maths kicks in – this is equal to
800 seconds per day, which doesn’t sound
like much, but let’s see how much time he
spends a year doing these non-value adding
activities: If the worker does this for 220
working days per year, he spends 64 of these
days simply retrieving and storing tools and