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Time Wise® Success Stories
"Organizing the Shop area was a logical place for us to start."
(See entire article in The Periscope, Volume 62, No. 9, October 2004)
Sail Loft, one of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard’s oldest Shops, has recently welcomed a proactive approach by applying the tools of Lean Manufacturing to improve efficiency, eliminate waste, and ensure first-time quality.
"The key to our success is the empowerment of the worker to take control and responsibility of their process," said Aaron Economou, industrial engineer. Lean Manufacturing tools provide that opportunity.
With the introduction of these principles to previously established practices, Shop 75 employees were not exempt from some early-anticipated skepticism to change. Aware of this challenge, the shop process manager helped ensure as smooth transition to the implementation of today’s Lean Manufacturing tools by offering Time Wise for Ship’s training to work leaders, supervisors and mechanics.
Beverly Gregory, Shop 75 fabric worker and 25-year Shipyard veteran, applauds the Lean upgrades implemented as a result of the team’s efforts. "It brought us out of the Dark Ages and is responsible for the Shop getting updated equipment," she said. A project that took eight to 12 hours of measuring, drawing and cutting, now takes 20 minutes with the use of the Shop’s Static Table Cutting System."