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Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Continual Improvement Plan Achieves Results for Process Barron

With the help of: Alabama Technology Network (ATN)

About

Founded in 1981, Process Barron is an industry leader in the turnkey solutions provider market. Process Barron designs, manufactures, and installs industrial process fans and material handling systems for industries including pulp and paper, power, steel, cement, food, and agriculture. Among their equipment and services includes centrifugal fans, dampers, expansion joints, centrifugal mechanical dust collectors, stacks, drag chain conveyors, screw conveyors, rotary airlock feeders, live bottom screw metering bins, double dump valves, boiler re-design, boiler repair, general fabrication, field service, and erection. Headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, they employ over 250 individuals in facilities totaling more than 150,000 square feet of space. While based in the southeast Process Barron has a team of 50 sales reps spread throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.

The Challenge

Process Barron had created a continuous improvement plan which they referred to as the 2020 Strategic Initiative-VELOCITY. The plan focused on operational efficiencies to continuously improve customer satisfaction levels, maintain current sales, and increase new sales.
ATN has been an excellent partner to work with to train and help implement continuous improvement projects. They are very hands on and have a wide expertise in many types of industries and use their industry knowledge to assist in developing strategic plans to improve the business. Without ATN we would not have been able to accomplish our goals in the same time frame.
— Michael Stewart, Vice President of Manufacturing Operations

MEP's Role

ATN created a customized plan with a series of continual improvement training that included Kaizen facilitator, value stream mapping, and three focused Kaizen events. In addition, Process Barron had a goal of establishing a quality management system (QMS) that would be compliant to the ISO 9001 standard and teamed up with ATN to bring this to a reality. With the Kaizen facilitator training, employees gained knowledge on the standard Kaizen process that would be used for implementing lean tools while developing lean leaders.

Value stream mapping (VSM) was a planning tool to assist Process Barron to focus on where to apply lean concepts to receive the greatest impact. The VSM process consisted of identifying value stream/product groups in the organization, mapping a current state of material and information flow, assessing the inherent waste, and designing a future state of how the value stream is desired to perform. The result was an implementation plan that clearly prioritized when and where to focus improvements and how each improvement would help achieve the future state. Lastly, ATN conducted three separate Kaizen events onsite in the areas of parts presentation, VSM, and design processes.

Created November 2, 2021