High product mix, shared equipment and changing priorities can make delivery difficult to predict. Duggan helps machine and fabrication shops design flow across product families and shared resources, with defined sequencing and visual signals for abnormal conditions. The aim is less expediting and more reliable customer delivery.
After completing the basic value stream designs, the Duggan team applies our Creating Mixed Model Value Streams and Creating Flow Through Shared Resources methods. These ensure each value stream manages its product mix while meeting guaranteed turnaround times (GTT) and on-time delivery.
Shared Resources – equipment used by multiple streams – are managed using visual and binary scheduling to maintain downstream fl ow. The Mixed Model framework defi nes Pacemaker operations through ten design criteria, creating a single point of scheduling.
This approach eliminates constant manual scheduling, eases planner workload, and controls inventory and lead time between processes, driving major reductions in both.
Flow Through Shared Resources extends product families upstream where equipment is shared, maintaining predictable flow, removing variability, and ensuring consistent, guaranteed turnaround time performance.
How? Duggan’s proven technique begins with having a clear view of your operation. We follow a design-based methodology to generate a future state for delivering to your customers on time, every time. We focus on clearly defining an endpoint or destination. We’ve found that you can avoid the cycle of never-ending improvements if your destination is clear.
Throughout the engagement, we work with your team in a manner that enables them to leapfrog the traditional improvement curve because every action is targeted toward achieving the future-state design.
Duggan is not like other lean consultants. Most consulting firms tell you what you already know and create endless improvement events that spin around. It’s an excellent way for them to make money, but it’s not good for you. These tactics keep you stuck in a cycle of short-term fixes.
A tier-one pump maker needed to ramp a new mixed-model assembly line from 12 to 21 units/day in six months, without sacrificing safety, quality, or team well-being.
Early lean tool use wasn’t the constraint; leadership wanted an operation that grew the business, not one that required daily management heroics. Specific pressures included:
At Duggan Associates, we take traditional lean training further with advanced courses, academic resources and hands-on support to transform how organizations operate at every level and area, from complex manufacturing environments to the office.
To get there, Duggan Associates offers each organization a customized roadmap supported by formal training and hands-on implementation assistance to show employees how to create an end-to-end, self-healing flow.
Everyone can tell if the flow is normal or abnormal. If it becomes abnormal, employees who work in the flow can repair it before it impacts the customer without management’s assistance.
Industry Week
Complex Machine & Fabrication
How the approach works, and what it means for your operation.
Duggan applies mixed-model and shared-resource methods to high-mix operations. Product mix, demand, setup times and routing differences inform the design.
We design the connections between shared equipment and the value streams it serves, using visual scheduling methods to support predictable downstream flow.
It is the designated scheduling point that sets the rhythm for the value stream. Connected processes follow the flow design rather than separate, competing schedules.
The design establishes how work is released and moves between processes. Clear operating rules help teams manage priorities, inventory and lead time.
Training covers value stream design, mixed-model production and shared resources. Duggan works alongside your team to turn the future-state design into daily practice.
Tell us about your product mix, shared equipment and the scheduling or delivery challenges your team faces. We can discuss how different routings, changeovers and customer demand shape a flow design for your operation.
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Email thealey@dugganinc.com or call +1 (401) 601-7286 and we'll respond within 2 business days.
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Email thealey@dugganinc.com or call +1 (401) 601-7286 and we'll respond within 2 business days.
