Western Oregon Door

REDESIGN OF AN ARCHITECTURAL DOOR FACILITY

Background: The Southwood Group, LLC, an architectural door producer, was seeking to improve its presence in the door market in the Western US. Neither of its existing plants is geographically positioned to serve this market effectively. To solve this problem Southwood acquired Western Oregon Door in Winston, OR.

Situation: Prior to the acquisition, Southwood's management inspected the facility and determined that the manufacturing equipment could support a higher output of doors than Western Oregon Door (WOD) was currently producing. Also, they determined that WOD was turning down additional sales orders because higher production could not be achieved profitably. Southwood Group determined that WOD's volume constraint was generated by poor process flow, product re-handling, and misplaced product.

Because Southwood maintains a lean management staff, necessary manpower for redesigning WOD's process flow was unavailable. Having used the services of A. G. Raymond & Company in their Oshkosh, WI, facility, Southwood retained our assistance in process flow redesign at WOD.

Commencing on the day of the acquisition, the first step in the redesign process was cataloging all process and support equipment at WOD's facility. Dimensions, individual machine/system layouts, and mechanical/electrical data were collected for the equipment to be relocated within the facility.

Field measurements and detailed inspections of the buildings were conducted to identify any civil, mechanical, or electrical items that would impact the process layout.

Using the descriptive data on each machine and line, preliminary process layouts were developed to reduce the excessive backtracking in the existing production flow. After the process layout details were approved, WOD commenced the internal relocation of all their process equipment.

As of late September 1999 equipment relocation is about 80% complete and progressing smoothly. WOD is experiencing dramatic improvements in the manufacturing efficiency even with installation incomplete.

A. G. Raymond & Company Inc. 1033 Wade Ave. Suite 102 Raleigh, NC 27605
Phone: (919) 831-0070 Fax: (919) 831-0072 Email: info@raymondnet.com