Maintenance had become the bottleneck for continuous casting.
A plant at its limit, and maintenance could not keep up.
A major Swedish producer of specialised high-strength steel was struggling to sustain enough maintenance capacity to keep continuous casting running. A growing share of high-strength variants had pushed the steel plant to its limit and demanded far more maintenance than before.
The common view was that the plant was simply under-staffed, short of space for maintenance, and too out of date to function properly.
We built a pull-flow, with the people who run it.
We started with a detailed analysis of how the operation actually ran, then built a training programme for employees and leaders across the whole maintenance function. At its centre was a consumption-driven flow, with pull-buffers based on just-in-time theory.
At the same time we worked with management and staff to set up continuous-improvement structures on Manage by Means principles, making sure everyone took part so the changes would last.
More capacity, no new capital, more freedom on the floor.
The need for maintenance capacity was met quickly, without any additional capital investment, and the smaller maintenance footprint freed up space for other departments. Lead times fell, tied-up capital dropped, and over-production waste was eliminated.
The largest gain was perhaps the employee satisfaction: people were given more power and more opportunity to influence their own work.
