Transportation – Rail Refurbishment Company

Performance Transformation

Business Challenge

Significantly accelerate production ramp-up whilst reducing product cost.

Background

  • Our client had secured a substantial contract to refurbish 100 train sets for the Victoria, Northern and Piccadilly lines.
  • Set #1 had taken four times the contracted man-hours and 8 months to complete. Performance for sets #2 and #3 was forecast to be no better.

Approach

    Our approach comprised three distinct, complementary strands:

  • “Produceability Studies” : focused on Design for Manufacture & Installation.
  • Production Scheduling & Execution: established a one week takt time, with eight production stages.
  • Lean Techniques: included lineside visual controls, lineside material supply and daily production meetings.

Key Achievements & Value Delivered

  • Target man-hours were achieved by set #9, delivering one train set per week.
  • The lead-time from train set arrival at site to customer delivery was reduced from 8 months to 8 weeks.