Energy spread quickly as results surfaced, and soon many more people were sharing ideas and assisting in the process. The results allowed Ohio Rod to better position itself in the marketplace and pursue more sales. They established a confidence level in their sales team to actively pursue new business as they can now rely on the operation to meet customer expectations.

Improved communication:

• Daily huddles in the office and shop floor to keep everyone informed of changes and developments and to solicit ideas and feedback.
• Tracked production and quality metrics daily to monitor progress and troubleshoot problems. Established paretos or quality problems to allocate resources to resolve reoccurring issues more quickly.
• Communication boards posted in every department to ensure proper communication channels stayed open and involvement in improvements took place at all levels.
• Incorporated direct packaging to reduce material handling and increase run time at machines leading to an estimated $70,000 in labor savings. Shifted focus of operators to quality and allowed for more thorough inspection of product and preventative maintenance of machines.
• Implemented in-process inspection to reduce defects and proactively resolve quality issues as they happen. Converted two indirect employees to direct and setup quality processes at remote plating company to greatly reduce transportation costs and defects.
• Reorganized “wire room” that houses raw materials allowed for the implementation of packaging kanbans to dramatically reduced inventory levels.
• Setup ‘milk run’ for material handlers to more efficiently move product in and out of areas. Eliminated operators from having to move material thus spending more time running machines.
• Created and introduced scheduling that gave further visibility to sales associates to proactively communicate to customers on order lead times and delivery expectations. Real time information along with a locked 5 day schedule gave management ability to monitor productivity and progress each day and better suit them to make decisions on overtime.
• Worked in purchasing to develop tools to help them be more effective in their day-to-day activities. Supplied them with a purchase order tracking mechanism to increase communication and visibility to other employees on delivery of raw materials and other supplies. Also developed an MRP system to manage raw materials more effectively, assess usage and obsolete inventory, and monitor inventory turns. Estimated inventory savings is over $450,000 in the next year.

• Ohio Rod was able to target key people willing to extend into other areas to continue making positive changes
• Added 39 new customers in 2007.
• Completely redid their floor layout that consisted of moving over 20 pieces of machinery, which will lead to better productivity for the operators and improve the quality processes.
• Implemented new ERP using the “simplify, standardize, automate” approach to create a new system that will allow them to decrease the labor necessary to load, schedule, and track work through the plant. 
• Coordinated activities between heat treating and shipping to eliminate redundant steps.