CASE STUDIES
A Top Electronics Contract Manufacturer
This top electronics contract manufacturer sets continuous improvement benchmarks and achieves a 25% increase in throughput with Drishti.
A faster, more effective kaizen keeps on delivering.
0%
reduction in kaizen duration
0%
increase in yield
0%
increase in throughput
Client Overview
Continuous improvement is a highly-utilized process for this industry recognized and "inspired" electronics contract manufacturer. Their team of expert industrial engineers are deeply skilled in lean practices and work well together to produce impactful line manual assembly line improvements. As a partner to some of the largest AV equipment OEMs, they were tasked with ensuring rising order rates could be met without sacrificing quality. They turned to Drishti to advance their lines and improve their kaizen processes in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The challenge: jump continuous improvement hurdles
Recent continuous improvement efforts had created more variability on the line, which isn't unfamiliar to engineers who are working through changes in standardized work. The expectation was that with more data and an effective kaizen event, they could start to work out lingering issues. For examples, they would be able to decrease mean cycle time, reduce variability, and improve yield.
To start, they requested that Drishti help them trace past results to a source and run more effective process changes in the future. They'd found that their efforts for continuous improvement tended to slip over time given their current manual data collection capabilities.
The solution: continuous improvement gains beyond the kaizen
With Drishti Flow in place at each station, this manufacturer was able to perform data collection, and take advantage of “virtual genba” tools. Before Drishti, the industrial engineering team would spend days in observation and data collection – averaging 5 to 10 sample datasets a day. Faster data analyzed and presented in the Drishti portal meant they had a larger, kaizen-ready data set to work with within a day. It also meant they had extra time to devote to collaboration and ideation. This provided strategic direction that would have benefits far beyond the kaizen event itself.
Their analysis identified the 3rd-shift as a benchmark for best practices and harnessed new visibility to work variations. This resulted in new assembly processes and uncovered opportunities to reassign line associates away from stations that remained mostly idle in that highest performing third shift. They were also able to evaluate quality concerns that had surfaced after previous assembly changes. Again, variations between shifts pointed to better practices, so they could meet their UPH goals while increasing yields at the same time.
Allows manufacturers to use live and recorded video from every station to improve assembly line quality and productivity.
Uses AI to continuously measure process steps for monitoring and rapidly improving performance.
Putting Drishti to work paid off with big benefits
Drishti's continuous video and AI-powered production process now enables this electronics manufacturer to retain gains they've made through their various kaizen efforts. In fact, it was discovered that during the 6 months the line was Drishti-monitored the team was able to keep pace with the 25% UPH increase resulting from the initial Drishti kaizen event.
Specifically, Drishti improved their manual assembly line production process in the following ways:
- Increased data volume on manual assembly lines: Achieved 10,000s of data points vs. 10s of data points.
- Delivered data with no observation bias: Line associates didn't “perform” for the kaizen team.
- Increased the scope of data: Data was generated continuously over time, not just during the event.
- Provided visibility where there was none – for the third shift: Drishti gathered data even while the kaizen team sleeps for overnight process improvement evaluations.
- Sped insights: Instant cycle data was provided and analyzed in real-time.
- Improved insights: Data points backed by video let them know why something happened, not just what happened.
The results: consistently delivering more high-quality product
New continuous improvement capabilities empowered the team to implement changes on the line faster than ever before. Kaizen events that took weeks, could be shortened to days. The gains were evident in both kaizen process changes and the total man hours it required. With Drishti, the IE team reduced kaizen duration time by 40% – leaving themselves more time for valued-added analysis and brainstorming.
The outcomes of the kaizen were reinforced by continuous data and video. It allowed both the engineering team and line supervisors to regularly analyze production trends. They could understand bottlenecks quickly with Drishti line and station trend charts and drill into videos to see if the line was maintaining its 25% improvement throughput as result of the kaizen.
The team also found that process changes didn't mean sacrificing quality. They could maintain quality while line associates were adjusting to new standardized work methods. The proof was in seeing UPH increases at the same time they achieved a 7% increase in yields on the line. They had met their goals and now had hundreds more high-quality AV products shipping to their marquee customer every day.