Macbey has engaged with Lean Consortium for the last year, bringing even better process and order to the factory.

It’s natural that Macbey customers want to know that their products are being made in a properly controlled and orderly way, with high quality, traceable raw materials and well maintained equipment. Thanks to 12 months of work with the Lean Consortium, that’s just what we can guarantee.

Building on the business improvement work detailed in our first newsletter, our production supervisors and team leaders have been learning to be Lean Leaders, each of them undertaking a project to bring direct benefits to Macbey customers. Factory Flow, Goods in, and Tooling Readiness were all tackled and improved as part of the programme, aimed at further reducing lead-times and increasing flexibility so that you, our customers, can have the goods you need, when you need them.

Factory flow is controlled by a collaborative flow board on the shop floor which displays all the jobs, materials and tools required on each line of the next 10 weeks. It is viewed and used by all production staff and compliments our IT based system as it is faster, easier to understand and more accessible.

Goods-in inspection has improved- as you can imagine, you can’t just rifle through a pile of metal plate like a pack of cards as there can be a tonne of tinplate on a pallet, so we have developed sampling and inspection processes in collaboration with our print suppliers which enable us to ensure that material getting to the shop floor is just as it should be. In addition, all the processes and traceability for BRC are being incorporated in to the goods-in and storage areas, in readiness for our audit next year.

Finally, our in house tool design, service and manufacture capabilities have been improved by implementing processes which ensure that tools are tracked and serviced at the right intervals, maximising tool life for customers whilst making sure tools are in top condition when they start a job.

Constantly Improving for our Customers.