What To Do When Your Lead Time is Slashed

Last week Gail called me frantic.  “How quickly can you modify some enclosures in production?” she asked worriedly. “What’s going on, Gail?” I asked.  It turns out her customer’s customer just pulled in the deadline by more than a month!   This meant that she needed 2 custom cabinets in a week.  The only way she thought she could do it was modify other cabinets we have in production.  “Well, we’d have to make a new door without louvers, add a window in the side and – by the way – change the dimensions of the cabinet.” I joked with her.  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” she said quietly.

I could almost hear her thinking about other options.  I knew we had to help her or she’d lose a big job.  “How about we build you 2 new cabinets from scratch in a week?” I offered.  “You can do that!” she squeaked. “I think we can, but it will cost a little more to cover some over-time.” “Great!” she said and hung up.  Quite frankly I wasn’t sure if we got the job or not so I sent over a formal quote.  The PO came back shortly thereafter. Now we had to pull it off!

We’ve made hundreds of NEMA enclosures over the past few years, so making a few more would not be the hard part, but these 2 were large custom designs.  Hardware is typically the longest lead, so we ordered from our primary supplier.  Then we ordered back-up sets just in case.  The window turned out to be $400 (too expensive for Gail) so we used a sample to create our own (for 38% less).  By Day 3, all hardware was en-route and all the custom sheet metal parts were designed.  On Day 4, all the sheet metal parts were running on the floor and the hardware was starting to arrive.  By Day 5, the components hit welding and by the end of the day the unit would be welded and corners would be ground.  And then we heard the last of the hardware wouldn’t arrive.

Gail needed to get the cabinets so she could start loading the electronics into the NEMA enclosures.  With her agreement, we shipped the cabinets to her assembler without the final hardware and we tracked the hardware hourly.  As soon as the hardware arrived, we opened the boxes and discovered that a component would not fit in with our design.  On the fly, our engineer designed and made a replacement component that worked.  Then, he drove over to the assembler to mount the hardware and finish the job.  Not bad for a week’s work!

Do you need someone to get you out of a jam quickly?  Call ETM!  We can help.

from ETM Manufacturing http://etmmfg.com/3515
from American Quality Management http://aqmauditing2014.tumblr.com/post/125519955090