Using the unique Chain free, clean overhead conveyor -system design and construction in the UK by ITS UK using OCS patented power and free conveyor -the Scandinavian Upholstery manufacturer Ekornes made a breakthrough in reducing sofa assembly times from 48hours to 6. Success with the first phase, which permits many of the processes to be carried out without removing components from the conveyor has led to sytem enlargements in 2002. Background and presentation - Ekornes Stranda AS is one of five factories in the Ekornes Group.
The Stranda factory is one of two sofa manufacturing units with 85 employees and has a turnover of approximately 8 million pounds (GBP).
The factory is a sewing and assembly facility that receives ready made wood- and foam products from various subcontractors.
The factory has three departments: one sewing department with CNC controlled cutting facility, one assembly department for frames built up on cross springs, wood and steel products and one department for upholstery and assembly.
Ekornes Stranda was a traditional furniture factory with long delivery and through put times, quite a lot of material in work process and some quality problems, an ordinary Norwegian furniture factory.
During the autumn of 1994 the Technological Institute of Norway (Technological Institute of Norway is a consultant company specialised in just-in-time (JIT) and lean production manufacturing) was engaged to evaluate the possibility to reorganise the factory and to increase its productivity.
A greater project was established.
The following main goal achievements were defined - indirect production cost shall be reduced by up to 30%.
Productivity shall increase with minimum 30% (Increase amount of units from 120 to 156).
Throughput time for all models to be maximum 4 days.
The technical equipment shall be matched to customer order manufacturing so that Ekornes can deliver a sofa on demand.
Following goal was achieved - the indirect production cost has been reduced by more than 20%.
Productivity has increased by 23% and there is great potential to increase it to 43%.
Capacity is increased from 120 to 170 units without increasing the amount of employees.
A new trainee program has also been established and carried through, it is a large module based educational system with 30 modules that strongly helped to increased the flexibility among the personnel.
The board of management in the Ekornes group are of the opinion that the results are so good that they now wish to continue with similar projects in all their factories.
The next factory that is now under analysis is the main Stressless factory.
This factory is a lot more complex and investment is to be 10 times higher than in the Stranda factory.
Profitability - a pay-back analysis was carried out which showed a pay back time of less than 2 years with investments of approximately 1,3 million (GBP).
Continuous calculations shows that this will be achieved with a good margin.
System description - the concept of the factory is based on a JIT oriented production philosophy with a pure custom order guidance.
Deliveries from subcontractors arrive daily with one to five days order frequency.
Almost all internal transport is automated, to more than 60 workstations in 3 levels.
Guidance of material flow and capacity is done by a specially designed computer control system, FMS Flexible Manufacturing System, with its roots in the car manufacturing industry.
Each work station has a terminal for computer follow up and status information.
The technical equipment is an internal transport system based on a overhead conveyor from OCS - Sweden (power and free type) installed from the ceiling in all 3 levels in the building.
It also includes assembly fixtures and a workstation with an automatic packaging machine.
The Overhead Conveyor (OCS) has 2 types of transport units with different carriers - a single trolley system used in the sewing department and a double trolley system used in the assembly and upholstery department.
Both systems are integrated with each other and are controlled via the FMS system.
The control system (FMS) which is based on Informix SQL database on a UNIX computer machine is also integrated towards Ekornes main MPR system which is supplied by ICL.
The FMS system is divided into two categories one that controls Conveyor and trolley guidance and one that controls work operations and collects data.
The manual ordering system KAN-BAN is also used to supply orders of internal and external deliveries.
The trainee program incorporates; general education modules for balance / guidance principles and work methods, techniques to simplify and improve different methods, work rotation and flexibility.
Also a great amount of profession based modules for sewing are included.
What is unique with Ekornes Stranda - automatic internal transport.
We nor Ekornes or any of their suppliers or customers know of any other furniture factory in the world that has established the same concept as described here.
Throughput time is reduced from 48 to 6 hours.
Productivity is very high, value increase is made in more than 60% of their productive time.
The Educational system, which is custom made, is very comprehensive to include all elements in the value chain.
The following points have played an important roll in the project.
The market will demand shorter delivery time and higher flexibility in the future than today.
This is achieved by the automation of the internal transport system and together with an effective integrated control system, throughput time has been reduced drastically.
Through this the most important element is taken care of, the customers.
Flexibility in production is taken care of, as it is very easy to produce different models through the system, also orders one by one.
At the same time it is very easy to re-prioritise the production and single orders.
The technical equipment, can easily be moved to a new factory, if required in the future.
It can be extended both in length and size, I e also more work stations.
Total concept, it is designed with concentration on total-productivity within the whole factory and in all areas.
Therefore, productivity and financial gains have been made that affect the whole Ekornes group of factories.
The Employees have been heavily involved in the process.
The emphasis has been on further education, motivation and responsibility through system and structural re-organisation of the factory.