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O'Neal Steel – Shelbyville, Indiana plant – sells value-added steel products to the material handling, railroad car building, construction equipment manufacturing, and transportation industries.

Situation:

When the O'Neal Steel corporate office asked each of its facilities to eliminate production waste through continuous improvement processes, the Shelbyville, Indiana plant call the Indiana MEP. “Lean manufacturing is where most original equipment manufacturers are headed. The worst thing that could happen to you as a supplier is your customers goes lean and you don't”, says Scott Young, Regional Operations Manager.

Solution:

To jump start the process, MEP staff conducted Lean 101 classes at the plant for salaried, administrative, and hourly team members. Now the company is implementing lean manufacturing based on value stream studies it conducted.

Results:

Post-class ratings indicate that employees are responding positively to the Lean initiatives which Young partially attributes to Purdue TAP. The Lean initiative has lead to increased capacity, throughput and increased capital investment from its corporate headquarters.

“They have a lot of experience in this kind of process transformation, and understand the challenges we're facing. No matter what happens, they've been through it before, so they have suggestions for what might work.” 

 

 

- Scott Young, Regional Operations Manager, O'Neal Steel, Inc.