VAC AERO's Oakville Thermal Processing Division recently completed an extensive plant re-organization based on lean and green manufacturing concepts. The project included building renovations to create more production space, the addition of new work-handling and production capacity, safety enhancements and energy efficiency improvements in lighting and power consumption. Lean manufacturing techniques that were implemented in the re-organization included Kanban systems, 5S and visual signals.
The company has also been working in close partnership with customers on value stream mapping and smoothing production flow. The effort is already paying benefits. For example, distances travelled for orders within the shop have been reduced on average by 50%. On-time deliveries have improved dramatically, now in many cases being maintained at 100%.
VAC AERO invested more than $400,000 in the re-organization, a portion of which was subsidized by a provincial government grant. The completion of the re-organization was timed to coincide with the commissioning of VAC AERO's fourth large vacuum oil quench furnace, designed and built by the company's Furnace Manufacturing Division. The new furnace will add significant capacity to the Oakville vacuum oil-quench operation, already one of the largest in the world.