How can we streamline the flow of materials in the foundry and the subsequent processing and installation to minimize the casting stock in the production and in the warehouse?
The Huelsenbeck & Fürst GmbH & Co. KG manufactures zinc die castings in large batches. The time to produce a casting is significantly less than the time of the subsequent machining. Therefore the castings must be stored before processing. The logistics effort is considerable. The storage period affects the quality of the products.
My task was to optimize casting cost with economic lot sizes and minimal logistics and storage costs. It was considered that the setup costs of the casting constitute a substantial share of the costs in the unit cost. Therefore an addition to performance as consultation for shortened preparation time was required. It was expected that the set-up costs are at least compensated by higher number of makeready by lower logistics costs due to smaller lot sizes. A shortened preparation time by better ergonomics could bring additional benefit.
The particular challenge: all analysis should take place during foundry operation. The concept should be developed as quickly as possible, introduced and incorporated during ongoing production.
The approach was performed with a value stream analysis over the entire production generation way and a multi snapshot of the locksmith.