Fontaine Trailers, one of the largest platform trailer manufacturers in the world, has over 60 years of experience producing industrial transportation components. Over the years, the company started losing money with excessively long production cycle lead times – nine months at its worst. This caused bottlenecks between workstations, where each line could only produce 1.1 trailers per shift. With MTG’s input, there was a dramatic reduction in lead time from nine months to just one month, and an increase in output from only 1.1 units to 2.3 units, per line, per shift – increasing potential sales to $10 million annually.
Project Plan
After assessing the factory floor, MTG was able to identify all the points of friction that were creating losses. At its worst, we discovered that the production cycle lead time was nine months where large amounts of Work-In-Progress (WIP) were bottlenecked between workstations, reducing each line’s production ability to only 1.1 trailers per shift.
MTG put its focus on the people and their understanding of the processes at the factory. We got their vote of confidence after implementing an effective KANBAN system – a tried & tested scheduling system that enables lean process improvement and just-in-time manufacturing (JIT) to improve efficiency. Its implementation ensured material delivery times and quantities were met, and Fontaine Trailers were able to see instant improvements on line balancing.
After working with MTG, Fontaine Trailers went from being unprofitable to maintaining a financially strong position in just 4 years.
