Lean manufacturing means different things to different folks. For small- to mid-sized job-shop metalformers, unique tools are needed to implement lean in the high-mix low-volume manufacturing environment that is becoming all too familiar to many of you. These tools may differ from those needed in the low-mix high-volume arena that once defined automotive supply. Seems simply wrong doesn't it-to think of automotive in terms of low volume? But that's where plenty of stampers and other suppliers have seen their business models evolve. You can't, in many cases, tool up a press or presses and merely load new coils day in and day out, filling orders in the millions. Many parts have dropped to order volumes measured in the thousands, rendering obsolete the traditional methods used to plan and schedule work.
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