The customer was launching a new product line within four months. The union contract provided a window of opportunity to revise current standards because the new product was introducing some new methods and processes. Hundreds of weld standards had to be reviewed and coded in the client’s next generation proprietary pre-determined time measurement system. The new system allowed methods to be described in more detail thereby yielding more accurate and tighter standards compared to current ones. This activity was going to require thousands of man-hours by trained engineers and it all had to be complete and accurate within this brief time period.

On short notice, IET provided at team of four manufacturing-savvy industrial engineers who understood how to build standards using pre-determined time study tools. After a condensed two-day training session that acquainted the engineers with the client’s proprietary system, the IET team went to work. Time did not allow the luxury of viewing every part being produced prior to developing the standard. In most cases, engineers just utilized existing process descriptions, part drawings and their own expertise to describe the proposed processes and methods using the sophisticated, pre-determined time study tool. The team tracked its progress daily. Within the first two weeks, IET’s engineers had “come up the learning curve” and were steadily completing their assigned work. Working as a team, they were able to share insights with one another and pull each other along. Their demonstrated efficiency and quality of work proved to the client early in the project that it would be accomplished as required.

Approximately 900 manual and robot weld standards were revised during the four-month engagement. On average, standards were tightened by 40%. This result has a major effect on overall headcount for the operation given the incentive pay system that is in place.