Steel Strips Wheels Limited (SSWL) specializes in producing wheels for various automotive sectors, including cars, trucks, tractors, 3-wheelers, and buses. Each project begins with customer-shared specifications and price targets, triggering R&D to initiate basic engineering of required dies. Upon customer approval, detailed engineering commences for manufacturing dies and cores. Engineering personnel are shared across projects. Approximately 30-40 projects are concurrently managed, requiring meticulous coordination and resource allocation to meet automotive launch timelines effectively.

Business Challenge

SSWL's wheel manufacturing business faces critical challenges threatening its market position. Revenue depends on uncertain mass production orders, while thin margins necessitate constant cost reduction. Missed deadlines result in lost orders and damaged customer relationships. The R&D division, crucial for innovation and improvement, operates under strict budget constraints, limiting its effectiveness. On-time performance issues and high inventory costs strain finances and customer satisfaction. Capacity concerns restrict SSWL's ability to seize market opportunities, risking long-term reputational damage. These interlinked issues create a complex web of operational and strategic challenges that SSWL must overcome to remain competitive in the automotive wheel sector.

Operational Challenge

SSWL's operational challenges span across four key phases:

• Engineering: Design processes are hampered by multiple iterations due to changing customer specifications. Frequent manufacturing and assembly support interruptions disrupt workflow, leaving limited time for crucial design optimization.
• Manufacturing: This phase faces high-volume challenges, processing 2000-3000 parts per project. Critical equipment, especially CNC machines, experience significant queue times. Frequent production interruptions for sample preparation, urgent replacements, high in-process inventory, and retrieval issues contribute to a concerning 15% rework rate.
• Assembly: Resource constraints, including limited assembly tables and skilled workmen, bottleneck this phase. Work is frequently interrupted due to missing parts or design changes. Last-minute deadline shifts force disruptive project switching, impacting efficiency and quality.
• Production: Sample preparation occupies production lines, causing delays. Incomplete die sets and defects discovered during sampling further hinder progress, creating a cascade of delays that impact overall project timelines.

These interconnected challenges across phases create a complex web of inefficiencies, affecting SSWL's ability to deliver quality products on time.

Analysis Findings

• SSWL typically manages 30-35 ongoing projects concurrently, indicating complex resource allocation and scheduling challenges.
• Project cycle times average 5 months, suggesting prolonged periods of work-in-progress and potential delays.
• Despite the workload, project throughput is limited to 6-7 projects per month, indicating inefficiencies in the overall process flow.
• The analysis identifies assembly as the system constraint, serving as the bottleneck that limits overall productivity.

These findings highlight the need for targeted improvements to increase throughput, reduce cycle times, and optimize the assembly process to enhance SSWL's project delivery capabilities.

Solution

Realization Technologies India implemented a targeted approach:

• Dual Pipeline Structure: The Realization team implemented a targeted approach at SSWL to optimize work-in-progress (WIP) and enhance efficiency. Through strategic allocation and improved workflow management in Basic Engineering, we reduced WIP from 25 to 14, minimizing overload and improving focus. In the Project Phase, we enforced a strict one-out-one-in rule and capped WIP at 12, ensuring a controlled and steady project flow. This strategic reduction in WIP enabled more manageable workloads and smoother project transitions, ultimately improving overall project timelines.

• Focus-&-Finish Strategy: We applied a ‘Focus-&-Finish’ strategy to detailed Engineering, Manufacturing, and Assembly to avoid the inefficiencies of multitasking. By prioritizing the completion of active projects before starting new ones, lead times were reduced, and current tasks received undivided attention. This approach significantly improved project completion rates and reduced the risk of delays due to scattered efforts.

• Constraint Management: We identified assembly as the primary system constraint at SSWL and allocated resources to optimize its performance.Focusing on this critical phase enhanced overall throughput and efficiency. By addressing the bottleneck in assembly, we achieved a smoother production flow and reduced delays in project delivery.
• Streamlined Workflow: To maintain workflow continuity and boost productivity, we streamlined the workflow by reducing unnecessary task switching and minimizing interruptions in engineering and production. This strategy led to higher productivity and better resource management, as teams could focus more on their tasks without frequent disruptions.

Implementation Steps

To ensure the effective execution of our strategies at SSWL, the Realization team:

• Established clear project prioritization criteria based on strategic importance and resource availability.
• Trained teams comprehensively on new workflow processes to ensure understanding and implementation.
• Implemented Kanban boards and other visual management tools for transparent project tracking.
• Conducted regular review meetings to monitor progress, address bottlenecks promptly, and maintain focus on priorities.

These streamlined efforts ensured a cohesive approach, driving significant improvements in project efficiency and delivery at SSWL.

Results

The implementation of our strategies at SSWL yielded substantial improvements:

• Achieved over 90% on-time performance, demonstrating enhanced project delivery reliability.
• Increased project throughput by 25%, optimizing efficiency and accelerating project timelines.
• Successfully cleared a 6-month backlog, streamlining operations and reducing delays.
• Reduced inventory levels and rework rates, leading to cost savings and improved product quality
• Enhanced resource utilization across departments, maximizing operational efficiency.

Key Success Factors

Several critical factors contributed to our success at SSWL:

• Limiting WIP to Match System Capacity: By reducing work-in-progress (WIP) and aligning it with system capacity, we improved flow and reduced bottlenecks.
• Focus on Project Completion: Prioritizing project completion over simultaneous progression minimized multitasking inefficiencies and enhanced overall project delivery.
• Unified Project Management Approach: Aligning all departments with a unified project management approach ensured cohesive efforts and streamlined communication.
• Addressing Core Constraints: By focusing on and optimizing assembly, the primary system constraint, we improved overall system performance and throughput

These factors collectively enabled us to achieve significant operational improvements and deliver enhanced value to SSWL.

Conclusion

We. along with the team from SSWL, successfully transformed wheel manufacturing operations by optimizing project flow and enhancing assembly efficiency. This collaboration achieved over 90%on-time performance and increased project throughput by 25%, significantly improving operational efficiency. Clearing a 6-month backlog streamlined production timelines effectively, while reducing costs, enhancing product quality, and maximizing resource utilization across departments. These achievements highlight our joint commitment to driving efficiency and enhancing SSWL's competitive edge in the automotive sector through streamlined operations and ongoing excellence.

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