Back

Tier II Supplier Taskforce Support

An approved Tier II Supplier that provided supplier castings to an OEM , was struggling to meet demand of their Tier I customer in both quantity and quality with increasing back log and lack of resources due to the COVID-19 shutdown. With no recovery plan in place, AMBE resources were brought in to stabilize the plant and build a bank. In a minimum of 2 days On-Hand of Finished Goods and 2 days On-Hand Work In Process AMBE was able to eliminate risk to the OEM.

The Challenge

In September 2020, a Tier II supplier created a staffing glidepath at 350 personnel targeting full employment at 495+ . With the significant lack of
resources, repeat quality issues, 2-5 expedited trucks including 6 truck milk runs daily, production was struggling to keep up with demand. AMBE
resources were brought in to help stabilize the production, logistics and quality processes and improve the abilities to build a bank against the request of this Tier II supplier. AMBE biggest challenge was gaining the suppliers trust to become part of their process and help eliminate the risk to the OEM.

The Solution

AMBE resources performed observational plant and assembly walk throughs, while focusing on strategic audits in troubled areas. AMBE was able gained
the trust of the Tier II Supplier by demonstrating a viable improvement plan of current findings and open areas of opportunity such as:
• Blue Collar Staffing support (General Labor, Die Casting)
• Renovating and transforming a vacant area of the plant to a pre-final inspection area to filter out any quality issue parts before making it to final
inspection and finished goods.
• Creating work instructions for the pre-inspection and trained
• Developed a incentivized plan for teams that achieved 2 weeks without a quality issue to final inspection
• Improved die changeover from 1 day to 4 hours
• Improved Preventative Maintenance schedule by having the die get PM and turn around to back in machine from 3 – 5 days to 1.5 days
• Improved machine uptime by more than 15%
• Improved first time throughput by establishing at point quality checks at each step of the process
• Eliminated expedited trucks by improving production efficiency and machine uptime.

The Result

Staffing

Before

September 2020 – 350, Oct. 1 - 400

After

Did research on 50 mile radius of employment agencies and provided other areas of potential labor pools, end of project staffing at 495
Major quality repeats

Before

Poor quality and lack of inspection areas. Repeat issues with final inspection and customer

After

Implemented spot quality checks at each process step and helped to renovate area in plant for pre-final inspection. Repeat issues have been reduced and/or eliminated.
Production efficiency and machine uptime

Before

Scheduled PM were not being adhered – Production actual # shipped was hand to mouth to customer No bank built

After

Improvement to PM schedule from 3 – 5 days turnaround to 1.5 days Hourly quality checks improved uptime and maintenance daily checks ensured better and more consistent parts Improved overall shipment #’s by ~ 20%V
Expedited shipments

Before

2 – 5 expedited trucks a day on top of the other 6 normal milk run trucks. Production was hand To mouth for parts.

After

Production number improved, bank built to over 1 week of production eliminated risk to OEM and eliminated expedited trucks.
With more than 100 team members in the US and response teams available globally, we are an award winning ISO 9001:2015, dual-certified W/MBE diverse supplier that brings expertise you can count on and outcomes you can measure.
Get in touch