This year at the 19th Annual Shingo Prize Conference and Recognition Ceremony, March 26-29, 2007, in Jacksonville, FL, twelve companies that have achieved a level of excellence in manufacturing will be acknowledged.

The Shingo Prize recognizes that small companies (less than 500 employees) represent a majority of CAMT clients, and are offering a 25 percent discount on all conference registrations for “small” companies. The conference highlights key lessons from the Lean transformation of last year’s recipients as well as leading practitioners from all over the country.

To learn more about the conference, please visit the Shingo Prize website through the link below . Contact Merrily Hill Smith at 303.592.4087 to obtain the small business 25% discount registration code.

Springs Fabrication, Inc. offers many services such as product design, material processing machining, fabrication, liquid painting and assembly to a wide variety of industries. Belinda Popovich, Director of Marketing and Larry Westman, Quality Assurance Manager, are responsible for Springs Fabrication’s continuous improvement efforts. Belinda explains that the company experienced considerable growth from 2002 to 2006-- 115.7% rate of growth averaging nearly 30% annual growth over 4 years. The growth, although welcome, presented a challenge to efforts of company-wide coordination and efficiency. In its near 20 years of existence, each of Springs Fabrication’s departments had developed its own processes and idiosyncrasies, often resulting in wasted time and redundancy.

Springs Fabrication embarked on an extensive year- long training program led by CAMT in order to “discover inefficiencies and stick to the essentials,” said Belinda. The entire staff participated in training and implementation of lean principles, starting with principles of lean training, and continuing through value stream mapping, 5S, kanban/pull systems and ending in two week-long kaizen events.

With each training, it became increasingly clear to Springs Fabrication that unnecessary motion was their biggest adversary. Employees spent time searching for needed materials and paperwork, duplicating efforts due to lack of communication, and moving materials from place to place. Staff used their new lean knowledge to establish new processes, such as creating supermarkets for inventory, staging areas, pull systems and kanbans, as well as shifting their job traveler to an electronic system from which anyone could pull needed information.

Immediately after implementing new lean processes, each department from order entry through processing calculated the amount of motion—walking distance—, and the corresponding time, that was eliminated from daily operations. Each department targeted a decrease of 30% motion, and all exceeded that goal, usually astronomically. The scheduling department and project managers reported a decrease of over 90% in their motion. The programming and engineering department reported a decrease of 70%, and the processing department reported a decrease of 60%. Another immediate and significant improvement was a 60% decrease in lead time from order placement to initial production phase. Belinda says, “CAMT’s lean methodology training put common sense into our work, helping us develop simple and easy processes to get each job done right.”

As a representative of a small Colorado manufacturing company,and a CAMT success story, Belinda is joining CAMT CEO Elaine Thorndike in Washington D.C. to visit with Colorado's U.S. legislators to advocate on behalf of Colorado's small and mid-size manufacturers and the federal legislation and programs that affect them.

CAMT is happy to announce that Colorado's first Bronze Level Lean Certification-inspired Lean Training Series has been successfully completed. CAMT partnered with Colorado chapters of the Society for Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) to bring the Bronze Level Lean Certification to Colorado manufacturers.

30 participants attended seminars of the Lean Training Series that assist Bronze Level certification candidates in meeting education requirements. Topics covered included Principles of Lean, Value Stream Mapping, Set Up Reduction and many others. The Lean Training Series is followed by a Bronze Level Lean Certification Examination Review course and the three-hour Examination. "[I] came away with pages of ideas, " said one participant. " “Terrific content [in both] presentation and exercise!” said another.

The successful completion of the first Lean Training Series and inquiries into additional offerings has led CAMT, SME & AME to offer the next Lean Training Series in the Colorado Springs area. An orientation will be provided at the Colorado Springs Manufacturing Taskforce meeting on March 7 from 7 to 9 a.m.

The Lean Certification program, created and sponsored by three leaders in the manufacturing industry, Shingo, AME and SME, outlines a standard direction for individuals and companies to drive their improvement efforts. This program utilizes unbiased, third party evaluation of Lean knowledge and abilities, and rewards development in Lean with an important industry-recognized credential. There are three levels of certification, of which the Bronze level is the first attained. Certification is achieved by passing an examination and meeting experience and education requirements.