Q: What is component standardization, why is it important, and what role does it play in furnace design?
A: Supply chain challenges affected everyone in 2020 and 2021. There are still lingering issues affecting the supply chain today. At its worst point, there were some elements of our furnaces that were backordered with a 48 to 50-week lead time. That’s not acceptable to us or our customers.
When we standardize our designs, we can focus on acquiring common components that are readily available, instead of waiting for “unicorns” that have long delays. Sometimes this means that – for example – we may standardize on a 150 hp VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) and a 250 hp VFD, but we wouldn’t stock a 200 hp VFD. In a situation where our customer might be able to operate with a 200 hp VFD, we would round up to provide more than sufficient power by using the 250 hp option. Our engineers will incorporate parts into the system design from our standard portfolio whenever possible to minimize lead times. While we can make customized solutions for customers, building with these standardized components helps with the consistency of the procurement of parts and simplification of our inventory. By identifying standard parts that we use consistently, we can also ask our vendors to keep stock on hand, knowing that we’ll be ordering those specific items frequently.
Q: Does standardization limit innovation?
A: Design and innovation are always constrained in some way. Constraints don’t stop the process of innovation, it’s just factored in. Again, we’re not trying to make a “unicorn” if a standard solution solves the problem. Standardized parts help our field service engineers troubleshoot problems easier, provide aftermarket engineers with a familiar place to start, and ensure that our customers are operating using proven technology.
We’ve built a lot of furnaces and can review previous builds in our archives for proven designs that meet the customer’s needs. Years of history and great documentation give us an edge when it comes to customizing a design for a customer.
One of the great things about having design standards is that we can quickly identify the things that we do need to change in order to meet the customers’ specific requirements.
Anyone can brainstorm a wild, theoretical idea, but working with standards and within a framework of reasonable constraints makes products that are functional, proven and familiar to both operators and service technicians.
Q: What does “Zero-Defect” design mean, exactly? How do you know if a design has zero defects?
A: Large portions of any given furnace are based on proven technology. When we do customizations, we start by identifying what we are changing. What will be different? Have we accounted for the difference? If we needed to add a pump, did we check with everyone that will interface with that pump? Is it incorporated into the schematic? Is the control system tracking and controlling the pump correctly? Does the software account for the additional pump? Is there space to mount the pump?
What we don’t want the assembly team to do is simply fix a problem they encounter. Our team wants to know whenever a problem is encountered, so that we can also fix that issue in the design. We need to be aware of these issues in any design, so we don’t repeat the mistakes in future designs.
“The reason why we are so stringent on solving issues before a furnace leaves the factory floor is because for every $1 we’d spend to fix the issue in-house, it might cost us up to $3 to do the same fix in the field.”
– Joshua Hinkemeyer
Q: How does your approach to lean manufacturing help problem-solve for defects in the manufacturing process? What is A3 reporting and how does that help your process?
A: Good design means good record keeping. We rely on historical designs when we look at making variations to our base models. It’s important to keep full documentation of every furnace, for build, service, replacement, and replication purposes. Every decision on a build needs to be captured and documented, and those documents need to be available so that our Field Service Engineers can ask us for clarification if they have a question about a part of the design.
A3 forms are used to help us with root-cause analysis and problem solving. Lean engineering, as a concept, is what drives us to have a systematic problem-solving plan. We start with a clear definition of the problem, refer to the tools and the diagrams that we use to work through the issue, and document each step.
Lean manufacturing became popular in the automotive industry, and we’re seeing how it drives us to use proper problem-solving skills. We’re not merely addressing the symptoms; we’re addressing the root causes and delivering permanent corrective actions.
One of the processes we use to help discover issues is “The Five Whys.” Asking Why five times can help us uncover systemic problems. It might work like this:
- “Why did this part have oxidation?” “Because there was a leak in the seal.”
- “Why was there a leak in the seal?” “Because there was residue on the lip seal when the door closed.”
- “Why was there residue on the lip seal?” “Because the furnace hadn’t been vacuumed and checked before starting the next batch.”
- “Why hadn’t the furnace been vacuumed and checked?” “We didn’t have it as part of our operations standards, or we didn’t train the operator to follow the operations standards.”
- “Why didn’t we do those things?” “Because we hadn’t encountered the problem before, or we haven’t written an operations standards manual, or we haven’t trained the operators, or the operator was careless.”
A lot of issues can be uncovered when we ask five “whys.”
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