Real-time control: Spellman charges up Lean, continuous improvement using Apriso operations solution

-- Manufacturing Business Technology, 3/25/2008 10:33:00 AM

Spellman High Voltage Electronics Corp. will use Apriso's FlexNet operations platform to enhance real-time visibility and control over the shop floor, identify and distribute best-practice processes across the enterprise, and support its Lean and continuous-improvement initiatives.

Spellman’s challenge was how to further enhance those particular initiatives to include processes spanning operational "silos"—e.g., those impacting production, quality, inventory management, and Spellman's supply chain; as well as ensuring best processes are globally standardized.

“With FlexNet, our plan is to enhance visibility so we’re better able to adapt operations and more efficiently respond to changing customer requirements without disruptions, or sacrificing quality," says Mitch Alexander, CIO, Spellman. "[Apriso will provide] global visibility down to the shop floor to help us identify which processes are indeed a best practice, which we will then globally distribute.”

When Spellman initially embraced its lean and continuous-improvement philosophies, first steps produced substantial improvements. Over time, however, the challenge is how to extend those performance improvements while ensuring benefits are sustained.

According to Apriso CEO and President Jim Henderson, “Simply having an extended vision isn’t enough to implement and maintain continually improving processes. You must be able to easily change processes, test those changes, and compare performance to measure which processes are truly a best practice. Spellman can achieve this functionality with our FlexNet solution.”

Deploying Apriso FlexNet as part of a continuous-improvement program will ensure that Spellman's business processes are adaptable as follows:

• Are easily updated as often as needed to continually improve performance;

• May be wide in scope, spanning multiple areas of manufacturing operations such as quality control and inventory management;

• Can be standardized as part of a "core" implementation approach, to then be consistently distributed to multiple plant locations; and

• Are automated to ensure that benefits remain in place.

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