ACL Newsletter Issue 28

A FOCUS ON ACL BEARING COMPANY
The team responsible for the introduction of the Kanban system into the Powder Metallurgy plant (L-R) - Paul Johnstone, Graham Milbourne, Maureen Cadman and Phil Dowl (absent Peter Longman).
KANBAN SYSTEM INTRODUCED
AT BEARING COMPANY
To explain what the recently adopted
Kanban system means to production,
we asked somebody who has been involved
in introducing the manufacturing system
to a number of Australian companies.
ACL Bearing Company’s Planning &
Procurement Manager, Darren von Stieglitz,
said:“Kanban is a visual planning system
built around a ‘pull system’ of manufacturing
rather than a ‘push system’.
“Customer demands pull the system
and that in turn necessitates production of
parts. It’s a replenishment system based
around issues such as delivery lead-time,
batch quantities, production capacity, set-up
times and production cycle times. It all
starts in the warehouse, and is based upon
a pre-determined order point calculated
on demand for the product/ parts. Once
a part is called up, it triggers a message
(“Kanban”) for the up-stream work centre
to replenish the product/parts taken.”
Darren said Bearing Company’s Kanban
system was a hybrid of the pure Kanban
method due to implications relating to
available technology, machine capacity and
set-up times.
“OEM’s for a long time, have worked
with Kanban and it’s notable that car
companies were among the first to adopt
the system in Australia. It works and is a
proven planning/replenishment technique.
Gasket Company has had the system for
some time, although you can’t exactly
replicate what they do up there, as every
operation is different.
“Jim Degnian came down from
Brisbane in February with the vision to
introduce Kanban at Launceston.We had
been working an MRP system (Materials
Requirement Planning), which is a push
system based on forecast. And we know
how forecasts can be wrong.With Kanban
you don’t even have to be involved in the
production to see what’s going on as the
status and visual nature of the Kanban
cards tell you.”
Plant 3 was chosen as the initial
operation for the introduction of Kanban
into Bearing Company due to the compact
size and stand alone nature of the powder
metallurgy production process.The majority
of Plant 3’s customer base are also OEM
customers. “One of the complexities we
face is that we have a number of product
lines which are make to stock items which
Kanban controls very well, but equally we
have other products which are made to
order,” he said.“We’re targeting 72 make
to stock items to get them up on Kanban,
while the made to order items will remain
MRP driven at this stage to ensure visibility
of long lead time raw material
requirements.”
Darren said the advantages of the
system are that it’s visual; it eliminates waste
and associated costs; it’s pull rather than
push which reduces lead times and reduces
overall inventory levels. This also helps
reduce the risk of product obsolescence.
“Kanban was physically introduced into
Plant 3 during June of this year and I believe
it will be operating to expectations by
Christmas. Some preliminary work in the
Bush-Line section in Plant 2 has commenced
in readiness for the introduction of Kanban
into this plant in the near future. At the
end of the day, Kanban will create a higher
level of customer satisfaction due to us
having finished product available when
they need it.”
Production Scheduler, Graham
Milbourne, added that it’s a system that
reveals the problems rather than covering
them up.“With this system, you only make
what your customer buys, as opposed to
making a lot of products in expectation of
selling them. In the old system the more
you made the cheaper the unit cost but
you then had to hold the stock.”