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Arizona MEP Prepares Heitek Automation for High-flying Growth
With the help of: Arizona Manufacturing Extension Partnership (Arizona MEP)
About
The Challenge
At the Kaizen event we included almost every employee, obviously those in manufacturing and engineering, but we also included those in customer service, sales, and accounting departments so they could see how these principles could be applied to any part of the business. The Kaizen event helped shift our mentality. Now when we run into constraints, rather than looking at the problem and saying ‘we need more manpower’, we're reviewing the process to see how we can do it more efficiently utilizing our current workforce fully.
MEP's Role
AZ MEP conducted an assessment of current operations and organizational structure. After completing the assessment, AZ MEP and Heitek prioritized the action items with the end goal of organizing the facility and company to take on more growth opportunities while maintaining high quality and customer satisfaction, creating a continuous improvement plan. The first goal was to improve the manufacturing processes for electrical panel assembly and metal fabrication. AZ MEP manufacturing experts led a Kaizen training event that mapped out existing processes, discussed ways these processes could be improved, determined the action items, and created an implementation plan.
With many customers in medical and aerospace industries, Heitek knew ISO certification was important to retain current customers and grow its business within these industries. Preparing for certification takes a significant amount of staff time and Heitek needed to understand where to start the process. AZ MEP’s team of compliance experts conducted an audit and developed a plan for Heitek to achieve ISO certification. As part of the continuous improvement plan, AZ MEP delivered manufacturing process and flow improvements, prepared the company for ISO certification, and saved the company money with a utility tax credit.