{"72921":{"#nid":"72921","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Helps Company Meet Customer Needs","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen officials at one of the world\u0027s premier golf club manufacturers were looking for ways to improve their production process, they didn\u0027t realize that a new and better approach was already sitting in many PGA professionals\u0027 golf bags.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAlbany, Ga.-based MacGregor Golf Co., which employs about 115 workers during peak production, has been producing golf clubs for more than a century. In recent years the process typically worked like this: New designs were created for the upcoming season, raw materials obtained, club parts manufactured to the new specifications and clubs were assembled in batches of 50. Customized clubs accounted for about 10 percent of the company\u0027s annual output.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe process left MacGregor with a substantial surplus inventory at the end of the year. The company couldn\u0027t discount the inventory without, in effect, competing with its own new designs the following season.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe burdensome and costly end-of-year surplus was a topic of conversation this past fall when manufacturing manager Scott Nix met with Art Ford, South Region manager of Georgia Tech\u0027s Enterprise Innovation Institute, and Ed Hardison, a quality\/environmental\/energy specialist from Tech\u0027s Albany, Ga., office to talk about Georgia Tech\u0027s services, including lean manufacturing assistance. The discussion was followed by a preliminary on-site assessment by Ford and John Stephens, a Georgia Tech lean-manufacturing specialist based in Eastman, Ga.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFollowing a presentation at the company on lean management, they recommended conducting a kaizen class - a fast and focused problem-solving exercise - to introduce lean-manufacturing concepts to a cross-section of MacGregor employees, according to Nix. \u0022I sent about 25 people to the class - managers, people from different departments, and four or five team leads who went through the whole simulation process. The light went off in everybody\u0027s heads: Wow! This is a pretty cool way of doing it.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENext, Stephens devised the nuts and bolts of a lean manufacturing program for MacGregor, the heart of which is called a manufacturing cell. A cell is a system where everything needed to build a particular product - from raw materials to packaging - is contained in one compact area. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMacGregor started this past February with a cell to make wedges and irons, then added another for putters and metal woods. Plans for a third cell are on the drawing board.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Products move from one operation to the next easily - you\u0027re just passing the product off as you make it, so basically you\u0027re making one at a time,\u0022 explained Stephens. \u0022There\u0027s no up-front picking or sorting of materials, so that labor is eliminated. There\u0027s no movement throughout the plant of batches of irons, as there was before.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EUnlike a conventional assembly line, the cell is configured in a U shape, which brings tasks and workers closer together. \u0022Consequently almost any person in the cell can help almost any other person in the cell because they\u0027re all that close,\u0022 he added.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe cell accommodates the principle of lean manufacturing that an item is not produced until there is an order for it, according to Stephens.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022You should never have any finished goods sitting around,\u0022 he explained. Lead times may dictate a need to store certain raw materials, \u0022but you don\u0027t put the effort or labor or overhead into producing items and putting them into finished-goods stock.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe approach is similar to MacGregor\u0027s custom work for touring PGA professionals. Each club is produced individually, and a set is complete and shipped within two days. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne of the keys to rapid turnaround was that club heads were attached to shafts with an epoxy that cured in 15 minutes at room temperature. In MacGregor\u0027s standard procedure, heads were affixed with a glue that had to be cured in an oven for two hours. The epoxy method was adopted for all production.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022You could get custom clubs faster than you could get stock product, which didn\u0027t make any sense,\u0022 Nix said. \u0022We were already doing lean manufacturing, accidentally, on the custom side. John came in and helped us adapt our custom express philosophy over the whole plant. Now everything is made to order.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAlso important is that the product quality for which MacGregor is famous has not been compromised by the cell manufacturing approach.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022There\u0027s a lot of care taken in the cell generally, and there\u0027s a lot of cleaning of the finished product before it gets to the last station of the cell, which is packing,\u0022 Stephens said. \u0022Clubs have to be blemish-free, they have to be perfect.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EResults from the lean manufacturing process at MacGregor have been impressive, according to MacGregor Senior Vice President Joe Rocco. Productivity has increased 50 percent while labor savings of about 25 percent have come from both production and shipping, since clubs leave the cells packaged and labeled, he says. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The biggest savings have come from the elimination of obsolete inventory,\u0022 Rocco noted. \u0022Energy costs have decreased because cure ovens are no longer necessary, and the entire manufacturing operation uses only one-fourth of its former space.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ECustomers are happier because an order is built and shipped within 48 hours, versus one week under the old system, he adds. \u0022Rapid response time also provides us with the flexibility to meet increased demand for a particular product.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFrom a different standpoint, Stephens was impressed with MacGregor\u0027s flexibility too. \u0022Although this was a big change for them, they were already in the mindset that change is good,\u0022 he said. \u0022They just moved ahead and implemented a lean approach.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor more information on lean enterprise services of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, please contact Tim Israel (404-894-2272); E-mail: (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tim.israel@innovate.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Etim.israel@innovate.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Stephens (478-374-1493).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEnterprise Innovation Institute\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAtlanta, Georgia  30308  USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contact\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:john.toon@innovate.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejohn.toon@innovate.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Gary Goettling\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Lean manufacturing principles boost productivity and cut delivery time"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"When officials at one of the world\u0027s premier golf club manufacturers were looking for ways to improve their production process, they didn\u0027t realize that a new and better approach was already sitting in many PGA professionals\u0027 golf bags.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech helped boost productivity for company"}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2006-06-30 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:03:29","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2006-06-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2006-06-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"72922":{"id":"72922","type":"image","title":"Manufacturing a golf club","body":null,"created":"1449177962","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:26:02","changed":"1475894665","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:25"},"72923":{"id":"72923","type":"image","title":"Production line","body":null,"created":"1449177962","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:26:02","changed":"1475894665","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:25"}},"media_ids":["72922","72923"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/innovate.gatech.edu\/","title":"Enterprise Innovation Institute"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=jt7\u0022\u003EContact John Toon\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-6986\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}