Freudenberg site sets top mark

CUAUTLA, Mexico—One plant's focus on continuous improvement has paid off.

Freudenberg Sealing Technologies' operation in Cuautla received the highest rapid plant assessment score among the firm's global operations. Its mark of 95 out of 100 was the highest in the history of the program, making it FST's top plant among its 58 global sites for 2018.

"Our rapid plant assessment process is a way to evaluate each site on how they are implementing lean methods and practices," said Dean Laughy, senior vice president of growth, lean and supply chain management at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies.

"Our businesses are motivated to improve their practices to better satisfy our customers' needs and in doing so, compete against each other for the honor of best plant. The audit process drives a constant focus on continuous improvement and business performance. Cuautla's score is remarkable, and we are proud of the employees who made this achievement possible."

The program's rapid plant assessment audit grew out of its Growtth program, which stands for get rid of waste through team harmony. The program began in 1992 and is based on the Toyota production system, which was established by Freudenberg-NOK to grow its business in the Americas.

As the program evolved, FST developed a process to measure its sites' continuous improvement activities. This is the rapid plant assessment process, or a series of audits and metrics that are measured in the operation to see how the firm is doing implementing lean principles into the business.

Laughy said any score below 50 is bad. From there, the 50-65 range is a developing site, 65-75 is considered a good operation and 75 or more is considered operational excellence.

"We knew in order to do that we needed an operational tool that would give us the ability to grow our business at that rate," Laughy said. "By launching this program and really focusing on the Toyota production system, we were really able to optimize our capacity and the development of our staff so we could reach $1 billion by 2000. We did very, very well toward that target."

For 2018, Cuautla reduced scrap to less than 1.7 percent. Freudenberg said productivity improved by 21 percent, lead time was reduced by four days and overall equipment effectiveness improved to 92 percent.

Cuautla Plant Manager Juan Hector Blass Hernandez said adapting the Six Sigma philosophy throughout the plant has been key to reducing scrap. The operation has been certifying at least two Sig Sigma black belts per year for the last four years. It also has increased the number of Six Sigma projects to 14 per year.

The plant implemented flow cells throughout the facility to maximize labor capacity and avoid non-value-added activities like waits and re-works. Blass said other initiatives included a tooling control system that guaranteed full availability of cavities per mold set and established human resource incentive programs to eliminate turnover and absences.

The site reduced lead times by implementing a U-shape cell concept, which allows an operator to handle two machines. And its preventative maintenance programs have helped achieved its high overall equipment effectiveness.

"Our plant is constantly looking to extend the Growtth culture to achieve the operational excellence with outstanding results and getting our people involved with the continuous improvement," Blass said. "We achieved it through lean and Growtth tools decentralization, which means that our managers get involved as Growtth coordinators."

The Cuautla operation was established in 1975 and spans more than 59,000 square feet with 312 employees as of May. It produces two main products: steering seals and damper/suspension seals made from rubber compounds.

Even though Cuautla has reached the top of the FST summit, it continues to invest in improving its operations. Blass said the site has received a new technology process for extruding rubber, six new prices and two automatic trimmers.

"We are focused to meet our annual operations plan, which is oriented to growth in the North America Market," Blass said. "As the leader in the seal manufacturing industry, our priority is to continue improving our product portfolio to increase the business with commercial partners. Based on the current automotive industry drop trend, our target is to push for innovations and to improve productivity."