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Facility Pre-Planning*
Merge Two Facilities into One. An aerospace manufacturing
company had two facilities located 15 miles apart. The
two facilities were merged into one new facility while
accommodating revenue growth of 100%. Impact. Proper
planning helped the client avoid signing a lease for
a facility that would be too small before they even
moved in.
Facility Modifications. A manufacturing facility
needed to expand. The special manufacturing required
controlled environments which were costly and required
a long lead time. Impact. Facility pre-planning helped
avoid a costly move that was unnecessary.
Merge Three Facilities into One on Fast-Track.
Following a merger, combining company operations quickly
was essential for its success. It was decided that a
fast-tract building was the best approach. Through close
teamwork between the company project manager, developer,
general contractor and architect, facility was completed
within 6 months of breaking ground while the design
of the facility was completed just-in-time throughout
construction.
Manufacturing System Planning and Architecture*
High Speed Manufacturing System. Lead Project Manager
and Sub-Team Sponsor for the development of a very high
speed agile manufacturing system for assembling batteries.
This project required concurrent development of a new
manufacturing workcell, a new machinery architecture
(patents US6325198, WO000416A2), a new control system
with open architecture hardware and software, and 6
new manufacturing processes designed to support product
design evolution. Total project responsibility was multi-million
dollar over several years. Demonstrated essential functionality
with a pilot scale installation of the actual production
design. Impact. Enabled the manufacture of next generation
product with increased quality (Cpk > 2 or six sigma)
and reduced costs.
Agile Manufacturing System. Joint project with
Case Western Reserve University to develop a pallet
based robotic workcell. System was configured initially
to assemble flashlights. Impact. Developed key manufacturing
technologies for agile, flexible, and modular workcells.
High Speed Robotic Palletizing System. Led project
to develop a servo motor driven high speed gantry robot
for palletizing and depalletizing product trays. Commercially
available robots were too slow and too expensive to
justify capital investment based on labor savings. Impact.
Reduced labor. Flexible system is a safe capital investment
that has been redeployed by reconfiguring to new applications
as factories closed.
* Note: This experience includes work done as
SMI and in former positions at Fortune 500 companies.
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