WIKA Instrument Corporation
When sales at WIKA Alexander Wiegand SE leveled off at around 300 million, lean manufacturing practices helped reposition the company as a highly responsive, high-volume supplier of made-to-order pressure and temperature measurement instruments.
“We were told that the award for transitioning to lean would be nothing but growth,” says Michael Gerster, former President of WIKA Instrument Corp. in the U.S. “That was true until one year later we started experiencing negative market forces that derailed an otherwise spotless record.”
WIKA business leaders decided to leverage operational excellence and lean manufacturing to transition to a just-in-time, high-variation, fast delivery strategy that provided enhanced customer value. They were able to protect their margins because their lean methods made production activity and performance much more transparent.
When WIKA’s lean journey started, management’s primary objective was to shorten order lead times, then running anywhere from four to six weeks, and improve on-time delivery performance, which was hovering between 60-70%. Improving quality and productivity were other top priorities.
“One of the weekly discussions that we had before lean was that we were too slow, too expensive, never had the right stuff in stock and our quality was not good,”
One of the critical elements of WIKA’s ongoing success has been the fact that lean efforts and the continuous improvement mentality have not been limited to the factory floor, or to any one department or division.
Some examples of how their Lean Management practices extend across all departments are:
When market demand fell, WIKA was able to protect its margins because their lean methods made production activity and performance much more transparent. In the past when orders fell productivity fell along with it because people worked slower. Because each lean work cell now has its own prominently displayed performance metrics, it’s easy for supervisors to see when output or any other key indicator slips. And when market demand returned, it was easier to align production activities to order requirements.
Lean practices enabled manufacturer to protect its margins and come out of the recession successfully:
At a Glance
Client
Results
This German manufacturer’s lean practices helped it survive the Great Recession and realize 30% sales growth in the recovery period.