Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is the continuous flow of products according to customer demand, where all manufacturing steps that do not add value to the customer are eliminated. This radical departure from traditional batch and queue manufacturing processes promises to yield enormous gains in flexibility, responsiveness, productivity, and quality.

Connectors are made from metals, plastics, plating, and assembled in a series of steps. Each material conversion output has a characteristic "sweet-spot". To complicate matters, there is a mixture of continuous and batch processes. In addition, the size and location of the market, and labor costs are quite diverse. Consequently, installing a lean manufacturing philosophy can be a formidable task for those that are not skilled in the art.

APEX has extensive multidiscipline experience in lean manufacturing for a wide range of products and industries.

WHY APEX:

• Utilize experienced manufacturing engineers
• Compare domestic verses off-shore manufacturing
• Understand how to eliminate waste
• Draw on extensive experience in manual, operator assist and full automation
• Gain hands-on manufacturing experience
• Obtain access to world class capabilities

APEX LEAN MANUFACTURING INCLUDES:

• Cost estimates
• Process plans
• Capital and expense tooling estimates
• Cost certification
• Comparison of continuous and batch processes

EXAMPLES OF APEX LEAN MANUFACTURING:

• Served as a "change agent" for connector tooling
• Developed localized product selection criteria for off-shore manufacturing
• Eliminated non-value added processes for magnetics manufacturer
• Combined manufacturing locations to eliminate product transport
• Combine multiple manufacturing operations into a singular process
• Determined optimal lot size for heat sink manufacturing
• Reduced time from order to delivery by >30%