Our Successes : Tools : Engineering Productivity

Project	Benefit	Methods
Developed product configurator for cartridge heater product line. Eliminated engineering in the product order cycle. Sales entered specifications from customer requirements and tool designed product and issued production order to manufacturing cell.	Order, entered by sales, went to production floor same day. Reduced total order cycle from 3 weeks to less than 5 days. Tool biased selections to legacy products, but could build entirely new designs without engineering involvement.	Kaizen, Value Stream, Pull
Developed product configurator for plate heat exchanger line. Allowed an engineer to input customer specifications and automatically generate the bill of material, streaming diagram and assembly drawing.	Reduced engineering cycle time from 5 days to 1. Saved 2000 engineering hours per year.	Kaizen, Value Stream, Pull
Developed a part search tool and data base for engineers to use in selecting components for design.	Reduced number of different materials used in designs and expedited the engineering process.	Kaizen, Value Stream, Pull