Company Profile:
Kennedy Incorporated has been manufacturing high-quality, die-struck jewelry, medallions and insignias from their Rhode Island manufacturing floor for over forty years. The company is a trusted supplier of the Department of Defense as well as luxury brands such as BMW, Audi, Grey Goose Vodka and others.
Situation:
Kennedy Incorporated has a reputation of producing premium quality products for world-class clients. Unfortunately, the company’s trajectory has languished over the past several years due to a number of factors including:
- Inconsistent demand
- General economic conditions
- Manufacturing bottlenecks
The company had stripped their staff down to bare bones. It was time to take a hard look at what it needed to do to take to bring the company back and launch to the next level.
IMPACTS
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Nearly instant return on project investment | |
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Hiring additional staff to fulfill new business | |
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Rehired previous staff | |
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Over 400% production volume increase | |
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78% increase in productivity per employee |
“Polaris MEP helped us get faster and more reliable than ever. In less than a year, we went from scaling down staff to hiring new employees to meet increased business.”
Steve Kennedy, Owner
Solution
Polaris MEP quickly recognized that there was no issue with product quality, but identified process inefficiencies and dove into a Continuous Improvement/Lean effort to address process inefficiencies and disorganization on the floor.
Successful Continuous Improvement is not just a “one-off” exercise but a cultural change within a company. Polaris MEP and Kennedy Incorporated staff committed to this ideal and have since moved from one end of the organization to the other to uncover areas that benefited from reorganization or elimination. They also pinpointed new opportunities for process improvements and automation.
Polaris MEP prescribed a specific Continuous Improvement/Lean effort which:
- Eliminated waste
- Reduced non-value added activity on the floor
- Repositioned inventory racks
- Clearly delineated production and shipping resources to improve flow.