Lean manufacturing plays a pivotal role in how PCI Group operates its manufacturing floor. With this approach, those on the floor have the power to recommend process changes that can improve efficiency. As a result, lean manufacturing improves quality, as well. PCI Group Executive VP and Co-Owner Skip Pawul answers the question of how in this episode of Ask the Experts.
“The key to Lean manufacturing is you audit the process and not the product,” Skip explained.
Lean manufacturing provides a set of standard works, which come from the 5s concept, related to how operators perform the work. These complicated processes break down into hundreds of steps, with experts on the floor devising them and auditing them. “When everyone follows the standard works, quality takes care of itself,” Skip added.
These standard works are critical to how Lean manufacturing improves quality. It also provides the ability to scale. “You can’t scale with a top-down approach. If you double your volume, you’d need hundreds of QC people checking the product. In a Lean environment, you add QA to audit the process to scale,” Skip said.
By adopting Lean manufacturing, PCI Group has been able to deliver industry-leading quality, accuracy, and compliance for our transactional mail customers.
