Just do it!

Ariens Company shows that you can't be a lean manufacturer by sitting on your hands

by Paul V. Arnold

Nike gave basketball phenom LeBron James $90 million last May to endorse its athletic shoes. Perhaps it could have saved some money and worked out an endorsement deal with the Ariens Company.

Who better to market the “Just Do It” tag line than a manufacturing company that realized “doing it” was better than simply talking about it?

Ariens, an outdoor power equipment manufacturer based in little Brillion, Wis., knows first-hand: If you want to be strong and lean, you have to be active.

“We were a company that typically talked about things for a long time. We planned and talked too much. Ultimately, the old way brought very little action,” says Jeff Hebbard, one of Ariens’ three value stream vice presidents. “When we did get something off the ground, the general attitude was, ‘Just wait and it will go away.’”

That was apparent when the company dabbled with various improvement initiatives (Conway quality, Costanza demand flow, etc.) in the early 1990s.

“At best, we were doing bits and pieces,” says VP Bob Bradford.

But financial and global pressures forced everyone working at the 70-year-old producer of snowblowers and lawnmowers to look in the mirror. They saw they were out of shape, a corporate heart attack waiting to happen.

Ariens made high-quality products that customers liked. However, a glut of inventory, a batch production system and poor process flow impacted its product prices.

“The delta between our premium product and the lowest-cost lawnmower was simply too high,” says company president Dan Ariens.

It either had to shape up or lose to companies that ship out (export similar product to the United States from China and other countries).

Active pursuit and implementation of lean manufacturing principles proved to be the difference.

Putting the house in order
In the old batch production days, Ariens fabrication plant workers stamped as many parts as possible. They sent material back and forth around that plant in order to make finished components, which were then delivered in bulk down the road to the final assembly plant.

“We had a week’s worth of inventory sitting at the assembly line, if not more,” says Hebbard.

Assembly workers stationed along one of five 150-foot conveyors tried to keep up and crank out finished products.

“We had finished goods inventory throughout Plant 1 (final assembly),” says Bradford. “We had finished goods inventory fenced in on the parking lot. We had it on trailers and at a warehouse down the street.”

Through education from the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership, training from Simpler Consulting’s George Koenigsaecker and knowledge gained from hiring plant-floor managers from dynamic firms like the HON Company and Stanley Works, the Ariens Company developed a better, leaner way.

The company now operates in build-to-order fashion by focusing on work cells, material flow and parts presentation.

A new spin on spindles
Spindles for large Gravely brand mowers are a great lean improvement example. These relatively expensive components used to traverse the fab plant.

“All of the machines in the spindle process were in different places around the shop,” says Hebbard. “They were shared resources, running many different part numbers. In order to get any one job done, you had to wait in line.”

Those responsible for spindles had to maximize the opportunity when it arose (save time on future orders) by requesting more stamped parts than needed. That common practice (everyone did it) created more scheduling problems and excess inventory.

The company solved the bottleneck by dedicating the equipment and building the spindles in one U-shaped cell. The impact? Prior to the change, the company considered outsourcing the spindles to a Chinese company at a 45 percent cost savings.

“Our purchasing people were excited about a big savings, but we asked them to give us a shot at this,” says Hebbard. “In one week, we built this cell and did a standard work event. We’re able to build the spindles, fully burdened, at a cost that’s 12 percent under the Chinese bid. Plus, we build only what we need.”

Presenting the parts
Increased flow and decreased inventory are also achieved through parts presentation.

“If you look at any assembly cell, most of the waste is with people movement and material movement,” says VP Jeff Strenger. “People walk to go get parts. They turn, twist, bend. So, we work hard on material flow and parts presentation. Using a surgical term, we try to keep the operator operating.”

To achieve this, four types of materials flow into an assembly cell (they are no longer forced in):

1) Hardware: A vendor stocks these items nightly in a two-bin, point-of-use system. Every hardware bin has a second bin behind it. When the operator empties the first bin, it’s placed behind the full one. The vendor refills the empties.

2) Painted parts: The painting area fills kits of painted parts (one orange, one black) that will be consumed in two-hour intervals. When an assembly cell uses up a kit, its group leader sends the kit back to the paint line with an attached order sheet. That signals the next kit to come down.

3) Purchased parts: Supplier-built parts are shipped to the plant. Receiving moves them into “supermarkets” close to assembly areas. A water spider (full-time material specialist) picks parts in two-hour kits and delivers them to assembly stations. The water spider returns empty kits for refilling.

4) Plated parts: The fab plant sends parts in two-hour kits to a local plating company. The plater packs finished parts in two-hour kits and sends them to the assembly plant, where they are delivered to the work area by a water spider. Empty kits return to the fab plant.

Presenting the carts
Another presentation benefit is found in cells that make walk-behind snowblowers and lawnmowers.

In these cells, all of the pieces to build a finished product are housed on a multiple-shelf, four-wheel cart. As the cart moves through the cell, the product is assembled. When the cart reaches the end point, the product is complete and the shelves are empty. If the shelves aren’t empty (there are leftovers), that signals an assembly or inventory problem.

“These carts facilitate one-piece flow,” says Bradford. “You can’t build more product than you have carts. If you’re out of carts, you’re done.”

A side note about the cells: While three, 10 or more people may work in a cell, every cell is designed so it could be run by one person. Such a setup allows for flexibility in manpower and demand (the seasonal nature of snowblowers and lawnmowers) while keeping the same cell footprint.

Think small, homemade
To further lean out production areas, Ariens recently began using right-sizing and moonshining. These lean concepts (used so effectively in large companies such as Boeing; read “Boeing knows lean”) force you to think twice about your capital equipment needs.

What’s right-sizing? Many companies (yours included?) purchase machines to handle any part order, no matter the part size — large or minute. Usually, machines are sized to the largest part you’ll ever have, even though 80 percent of the parts are small in nature. It’s total overkill.

Ariens’ answer is its 80-20 cell (named after the Pareto principle for separating the “vital few” from the “trivial many”).

“We did about 5,000 part numbers in the fab plant last year. About 800 of them are 90 percent of the work,” says Hebbard. “What we are doing is routing more and more parts to this cell. We gave them a tiny laser, a brake press, a 200-ton press, some lathes, some mills and drills, and a welding booth. They are capable of building most anything.”

Moonshining is a Japanese term used to describe low-cost, right-size, build-it-yourself projects.

This is found in Ariens’ fab plant, where a cell was built to make under-the-deck lawnmower baffles.

“Before, each baffle was independently made. It went from station to station. Tabs were made on an automatic press and then welded on,” he says. “During a kaizen event, team members thought of cutting these out on a CNC press. Then they built their own equipment and tables for the baffle rolling and forming. The machine operator, maintenance guys, and tool and die makers also built their own tooling. Now, the baffles are done within this one cell.”

Crazy about kaizen
Through lean principles, Ariens is taking a closer look at how it does business. Kaizen, as seen in the baffles project, is an important part of the examination process.

At any one time, Ariens probably has a kaizen event exploring ways to remove waste and inefficiencies.

It’s impossible not to notice kaizen’s presence. Clipboard-toting teams surround a machine or cell. The company newsletter includes a two-page centerspread chronicling team progress and performance. Scores of workers wear orange “Kaiz-animal” T-shirts.

Last year, 380 out of Ariens’ 750 employees served on at least one kaizen team, including 75 who served on six or more teams.

“People see being on a kaizen team as part of what they do as an Ariens employee,” says Strenger. “That shows you how our culture has changed. It used to be a wait-and-see environment. Now, it’s a go-and-do-it environment. It’s the way things get done.”

Hebbard echoes his co-worker’s assessment.

“Our first kaizen event came in September 2000. By late 2001, we had about 150 kaizens under our belt,” he says. “At that point, people came up to (the plant managers) and said, ‘This isn’t going away, is it?’  The people on the shop floor saw that this wasn’t the Conway improvement method we had in the early ’90s or the theory of constraints software we installed back then. This was different.”

Employees realized that lean manufacturing was lively and energetic. Improvement and involvement were apparent.

“When senior employees with 20-30 years experience tell us that ‘this lean stuff really works,’ we know we are making a difference,” says Dan Ariens.

When the company looks in the mirror, it no longer sees an out-of-shape, on-the-brink, small-town equipment maker. What does it see?

“It’s very simple,” says Ariens. “We see that lean and the Ariens Production System will allow us to continue to manufacture product here in the United States.”

Learn more about Ariens
President Dan Ariens will speak about his company's transformation at "Lean Manufacturing University." Click here for more information.

This article appeared in the October/November 2003 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2003.

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