Company Profile: Southerntier Custom Fabricators, Inc. (STCF) is a family owned and operated business since 1982. They are located in Elmira, NY and employ over 120 people. They opened their doors in 1982 with a 10,000 square foot facility and staff of 10. Today, with over 120 employees and a 39,000 square foot facility, they continue to specialize in Sheet Metal fabrications and Air Handling systems for the commercial and industrial marketplace. STCF brings over 500 combined years of sheet metal construction and specialty manufacturing experience to their projects. The Senior Management and Production Supervisors' individually have in excess of 15 years experience each.

STCF's team manufactures world-class HVAC air handling systems and specialty fabrications for the Commercial, Educational/Institutional, and Industrial marketplace - from design to delivery in a fully automated facility. They work in partnership with their customers to provide superior finished products, quick turn-around, and value-added, dependable service.

Their fully automated, integrated facility provides their customer with CAD operated drawings, and custom ticketing with barcode labeling that accounts for all the parts!

Situation: STCF was interested in conducting a company-wide Workplace Organization program and Lean Pilot Program in the Round Fabrication area. AM&T provided a proposal to deliver a customized Lean Training Program. The objectives of the training were to improve workplace organization throughout the facility to improve productivity and Pilot a Lean Manufacturing initiative in the Round Fabrication area to improve profitability, productivity, business processes as well as enable STCF to expand sales in this area.

Solution: STCF decided to go forward with the project in 2007, after obtaining a NYS Department of Labor Training grant, to help offset the cost of the training. STCF's investment was over $200,000.

AM&T's approach to achieve the objectives was to provide various training events. For Workplace Organization the following were delivered: 2-hour 5S: Workplace Organization Training Sessions targeted to each area of the facility.

For the Round Fabrication Pilot program, AM&T delivered an 8-hour Principles of Lean Manufacturing Workshop to Round Fabrication area employees (16), conduct Value Stream Mapping, Cellular/Flow Manufacturing, Pull/Kanban training events for cross-functional team responsible for implementation.

To keep things balanced (6) 2- hour training sessions to review Lean Implementation Planning and Project Management took place.

Separate from the training grant, but occurring during the same time frame, AM&T provided training in Basic Project Management to 4 key STCF employees. This was to increase employee knowledge of basic project management tools and techniques as well as advance their skills at applying the tools and techniques.

This training took place over the course of 14 months and took a great deal of time and dedication on the part of STCF employees to learn and use the new skills that were taught.

Results: STCF employees worked hard and shared great ideas throughout the process to implement new strategies. Even those who were not involved in the process have been amazed at the benefits realized.

STCF realized a 15% increase in usable shop space, decreased on hand inventory by 15%, and reduced turn-around time on standard orders from 7-10 days to 5-7 days. We also decreased our scrap output by approximately 5% and saw an increase in complete and on time deliveries by 25%.

Testimonial: "I would highly recommend working with AM&T to any manufacturing operation looking to improve their productivity." ~ Ian Morrell - President

Home | Services | Associates
Newsletter | Staff | Events | Links