Lean Manufacturing Assembly

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SEATTLE—Lean manufacturing has enabled Boeing to make dramatic improvements in efficiency. Assembly time for the 777 jetliner has been reduced from 71 days to 37. Assembly time for the 737 jetliner has been cut from 20 days to 11.

Alabama is home to state-of-the-art auto plants operated by Daimler, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota. It’s also home to a state-of-the-art assembly line that builds toy cars out of Lego blocks: Tiger Motors.

The widespread availability of modular profile systems has made it easy for engineers to get in touch with their creative side. They enable assemblers to bolt together framing components to tailor workstations and machines to specific processes or floor space requirements.

What do lumberjacks, landscapers and homeowners have in common? They all rely on chain saws, trimmers and leaf blowers produced by STIHL Group.

The bald eagle is a majestic symbol of power and freedom. It’s also the logo of one of America’s oldest aerospace manufacturers: Pratt & Whitney.

Tim Hutzel will never forget the first time, back in 1995, that he walked the shop floor at Hamilton Caster & Manufacturing Co., a maker of industrial wheels, casters, carts and trailers in Hamilton, OH. Hutzel had just left his job as director of lean transformation at GE Aviation to strike out on his own as a consultant and lean guru. Hamilton Caster was his first customer.

By the late 1940s, many U.S. manufacturers began creating and building products for the post-WWII economy.

NOVI, MI—Creform Corp. has opened a new regional sales office and manufacturing facility here to serve the Northeast and Midwest U.S. markets and Canada.

There are two opposite ways to equip factories to respond quickly to downstream customer orders: One way is for sequential production, and the other is for concurrent production. Both draw heavily from best practices in lean manufacturing.

There’s lots of talk about a manufacturing renaissance. Some call it a resurgence, others a revolution, but the name doesn’t matter. There’s also been a lot of argument over the magnitude of the decline in manufacturing and how to measure it. Some say there wasn’t a decline at all. None of that matters, either.