LeanSigma Vision Tour - Dive Deep into a Dramatic Lean Transformation Story

• Dive into the WIKA lean DNA and learn how WIKA delights customers. See how the customer service team applies visual management tools, 5S, SQDC boards, and hour-by-hour charts to create flow and identify abnormalities.
  
  
• The shipping department demonstrates how a strategic visioning event led to the implementation of material flow, lean workstations, WIP reductions, standard work and visual management. Their lean shipping approach has increased department capacity by $22 million per year without the need for additional manpower.
  
  
• The raw materials warehouse uses lean manufacturing software to provide visual replenishment signals to order pickers. These visual signals facilitate proper sequence pick-ups and track hour-by-hour performance, allowing WIKA to maintain an efficient replenishment system for kanban and pick-to-order components.
  
  
• The sales & operations planning debrief provides an overview of WIKA’s process for sales forecasting, demand management and operations planning. See how this group leverages lean processes to review line production plans, finished goods inventory plans and master schedules for raw material.
  
  
• Visit WIKAs model line for lean material handling. See how pick-to-order components are sequenced, kitted and delivered to the line every four hours via a lean, mobile supermarket designed specifically for this cell.
  
  
• Visit WIKA’s model cell for production smoothing. This highly flexible line runs a 50/50 mix of make-to-stock and make-to-order products. The production planner drags and drops kanban for finished goods into a lean order schedule that is printed daily at the line.

WIKA Instrument Corporation, located just outside of Atlanta, is the world’s leading manufacturer of pressure and temperature instrumentation. With more then 650 employees at their 210,000 square foot facility, this company uses the latest technology as it strives everyday for better quality and flexibility. Over the past seven years, WIKA doubled sales revenue while leveraging lean to improve productivity by 20-40 percent, reduce lead times from five weeks to five days, and liberate nearly 12,500 square feet of floor space while adding six new production lines for new products.

Most recently, WIKA is focusing its efforts outside their four walls by extending lean into the value chain. Their responsiveness to demand variations and their supply chain integration, both up and down stream, has helped them to build upon their competitive advantage as a world-class manufacturer.