Last summer, Charles Dawson \u201919, Ryan Haughton \u201919 and Lydia Sylla \u201919 embarked on a 10-week project to modernize manufacturing operations at Laguna Clay Company, a Los Angeles ceramic supply business. The owners of the 43-year-old company hoped to reduce clutter, streamline material handling, redesign assembly processes and improve efficiency.<\/p>\n
The project\u2019s success has led to recognition by the Manufacturers\u2019 Council of the Inland Empire, which presented the students with the 2019 Innovation by Students award at the annual Manufacturers\u2019 Summit Feb. 14. During the annual event, attendees celebrate innovative businesses and leaders who have great ideas for growing businesses, dramatically improving performance and addressing some of the toughest challenges in today\u2019s manufacturing industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spent the first few weeks observing and understanding their processes,\u201d says Haughton. \u201cOverhauling an entire factory is a bit too much to do in one summer, so we piloted our improvement program in the pottery wheel manufacturing division, which was responsible for approximately 15 to 20 percent of the company\u2019s revenue,\u201d says Dawson.<\/p>\n
The students named their project \u201cReinventing the Wheel Department\u201d and got to work. \u201cBy the end of the 10 weeks,\u201d says Dawson, \u201cwe had made a number of successful improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the main improvements we made,\u201d Haughton says, \u201cwas the introduction of new workstations. We designed new workstations from scratch, having locations for each tool and part the operator would need. That way, the operator would have quick access to everything they needed, reducing non-value-added time.\u201d As a result, the students reduced the department\u2019s lead time by 78 percent and increased output by 156 percent.<\/p>\n
Funded by the Henry E. and Gayle Riggs Fellowship in Engineering Management, the project allowed the students to apply their classroom learning to real-world situations. \u201cSo many of the concepts and techniques we learned in E182 [Manufacturing Planning\/Execution] transferred directly to the industrial setting,\u201d Dawson says. \u201cBut, at the same time, there\u2019s a huge difference between writing a report for a case study and actually convincing factory workers and production managers that your ideas will actually help improve operations. I gained a lot of experience working with people, leading change and communicating with\/convincing the people we were working with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kash Gokli, professor of manufacturing practice and Engineering Clinic director, is the team\u2019s advisor and director of the Riggs Fellowship. \u201cI am proud of the work our students have done as Riggs Fellows,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is a tremendous learning experience for our students as well as a big impact on the company\u2019s bottom line. It is a win-win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students applied some \u201cpretty solid HMC teamwork\u201d to the process, Dawson says. \u201cThere were only three of us, and we were essentially running full-tilt for the whole summer, handing off tasks to whoever could complete them most quickly in a given moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the significant lead-time reduction and increase in productivity, the team reduced the company\u2019s work-in-process inventory by 85 percent, reduced cycle time by 50 percent on average at each assembly workstation and significantly reduced clutter in the assembly area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was honestly a little bit surprised by how much of an impact we ended up having,\u201d says Sylla. \u201cNot only did we make it possible for them to hit their production targets, we made it possible for them to hit their production targets before lunchtime, freeing up the rest of the day for work on other projects and improvements. We also got pottery lessons while working with Laguna, which was a lot of fun.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last summer, Charles Dawson \u201919, Ryan Haughton \u201919 and Lydia Sylla \u201919 embarked on a 10-week project to modernize manufacturing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":7229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,212,14,26,30],"class_list":["post-7228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-award","category-engineering","category-experiential-learning","category-faculty","category-research","category-students"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}