Company Profile
Lancelot Pinnock struggled with a common parenting challenge: his son was small, the kitchen countertops tall. He wanted to do more than just juggle the toddler and the sink. An engineer by trade, Lancelot used his skills to design a unique, foldable stepstool and “Hideaway Solutions” was born in 2017.
Dana Pinnock was successfully working in floral design. As Hideaway Solutions grew, she chose to join her husband and take on the role of CEO. In 2022 the Pinnocks moved production of concealable, foldable furniture out of their home and into a historic building in Bristol, RI.
Situation
Hideaway Solutions needed expert assistance to:
- Shorten production time and increase output
- Decrease the number of times per week the Assembly team ran out of needed parts
- Improve customer satisfaction
- Standardize Assembly process so that new employees could be hired
Dana was enrolled in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program at the Community College of Rhode Island. The “10KSB” team and several alumni referred Hideaway Solutions to the Rhode Island Manufacturing Extension Partnership center, Polaris MEP.
Solution
Polaris MEP Project Manager Nathan Bonds started by observing the Hideaway Solutions process and team movements within the building. He saw that, after years in a cramped garage, the company had spread out to every corner of the new space. The result was many, many extra steps each day.
Further, the team lacked clear flow paths for assembly and needed a better understanding of inventory needed for production.
Bonds proposed a “5S” project of the Assembly Area with a goal of “smooth flow.” 5S is a fundamental Lean Manufacturing tool. It became a transformational tool for Hideaway Solutions.
After classroom training on 5S and Lean fundamentals, Bonds took the team through a different “S” each week, a Review & Do method that Lancelot appreciated. He said “It is necessary to first learn the concepts sitting down at the desk and, from then on, you’re never at the desk. You’re always out in the shop, making changes.”
The biggest change of all? Giving up a batch processing approach in favor of single-piece flow with a prime line.
Results
“Since we started working with Nathan and Polaris MEP we are down to one-by-one flow, which we thought was impossible. It has been a game-changer,” said Dana.
Lancelot praised Polaris MEP 5S training as the foundation for success. “It shortens the assembly line and simplifies it. Everything that we need is there and nothing that we don’t need. It’s just so efficient.”
Neither Pinnock could hide their satisfaction with the results:
1. A unit can now be ready to ship in 20 minutes (vs. 2 days)
2. “The prime line never ends – it always has some material in it, and it’s so much easier to start the next day,” said Lancelot.
3. “Orders are going out faster – we have happier customers,” said Dana.
4. A new employee with little training can now begin to build the most popular Step 180 product quickly and with no mistakes
Lancelot and Dana agree that 5S was an introduction to Polaris MEP, but said they received much more. “The coaching we received from Nathan and Polaris MEP has been incredible,” said Dana. For example, Bonds taught the team how to document materials defects; this led to better communications with suppliers and an increase in quality.
“It has been just unbelievable, keeping those conversations going and opening up doors… The coaching that we have continued to receive has been worth every penny and every minute.”
IMPACTS
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Cost savings of $45,750 in direct savings and by avoiding unnecessary investments | |
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3 employee positions retained | |
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New sales of $175,521; retained sales of $1,058,086 |
Chris Cinieri is outstanding and we can’t say enough good things about him and the work he did. I know that our organization is stronger and flows a lot smoother since we worked with Polaris MEP.
Phil McCallyl
President, American Tool Company
Solution
Cinieri said the ATC team had several key elements in place to make the effort successful:
• Their quality management system (QMS) was pretty close to the ISO standard; it needed more thorough documentation, not to be created from scratch.
• Employee culture was one of teamwork and improvement.
• Leadership (McCally) was committed to the training.
• It wasn’t going to be a “one and done,” but rather a comprehensive ISO plus Lean approach.
A Gap Analysis identified areas that would need to be addressed for ISO 9001:2015 certification. Cinieri worked together with ATC leadership to help fill those gaps and provided training to the entire ATC team prior to their audit.
“Chris came in for almost a year, getting us ready for the first audit,” said McCally. “He became one of us. He was integrated with the machinists and quality control. Chris really went through the whole organization from soup to nuts.”
Polaris MEP helped American Tool secure grant funding from the State of Rhode Island for employee training in Quality, Lean principles and 5S. This freed up time and money to invest in other improvements, such as an electronic visual metrics board on the production floor, a new Lean layout for the quality control area, and an employee training matrix.
Results
American Tool Company passed their ISO 9001:2015 Certification Audit on their first attempt with only a few, easily correctable “minors.”
Every part of the organization has benefited from the combination of ISO and Lean training, said McCally.
• Unexpected sales expansion. “It opened up the doors for a couple of business opportunities. We’re now doing more and more work with medical firm that we wouldn’t have gotten without ISO.”
• Greater efficiency. “It helped us get focused us on any trouble areas. If there’s a problem, like ‘Why did this same machining operation have an issue several months in a row?’ we can focus in and fix it faster.”
• Supply chain relationships improved and became stronger as reports more precisely document the work and any non-compliance issues with ATC’s suppliers. “Our long-term customers noticed the difference right away, that we are dealing with problems as they arise in a professional way. Suppliers realized they really needed to be on the ball.”
• Employee advancement. A team member who occasionally did quality control was promoted to Quality Control Manager. He led ATC through its second audit, which they passed with flying colors.
Even human resources benefited. ISO and Lean led to thorough and better documented procedures such as an employee matrix. This in turn led to easier onboarding and better organized ongoing employee training.
“Chris Cinieri is outstanding and we can’t say enough good things about him and the work he did,” said McCally. “I know that our organization is stronger and flows a lot smoother” since working with Cinieri and Polaris MEP.