3 Big Manufacturing Business Benefits Gained by Going Lean

Accuride Corporation, a leading supplier of wheels and wheel-end automotive components to the North American commercial vehicle industry, prides itself on being dependable. The company knows its commitment to lean manufacturing is key to delivering premium quality products, on time, at a competitive price.

In fact, it’s this stringent ethos that earned Accuride the Manufacturing Excellence Award in 2014 for its Henderson, Kentucky wheel plant from the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME).

The company’s cloud-based manufacturing ERP system includes lean manufacturing principles that have delivered several significant business benefits, including:

1. Improved Customer Service

A company is as successful as its customers are satisfied. If an organization always supplies top-quality products and services on time, at the right place, those satisfied customers will keep returning, enabling the business to thrive. At Accuride, customer satisfaction is high. The company’s real-time view into fulfillment from specific locations ensures a quick response to customers.

2. Easy Management

With lean manufacturing principles in place, Accuride’s workflows are more fluid. Activities can be tracked and reassigned in just minutes because managers no longer need to be on premises or connected to a VPN to oversee employees. Process automation is effortless as well. As soon as a production machine clicks into operation, all associated processes, such as inventory deduction, are automated. For example, some production lines run 15 to 20 different part numbers per day, and Accuride can ship inventory within three hours.

3. Improved Quality and Fewer Defects

Much of lean manufacturing is focused on improving quality. Without waste, product value increases and quality is enhanced. Accuride has seen quality improve drastically due to end-to-end traceability provided by its manufacturing ERP software. If a quality issue is identified with a part, Accuride can see where the part went, retrieve it, identify which components were used, and predict where other quality issues might impact production before they happen. This kind of visibility has helped turn quality management into a profit center for Accuride.