2008 LEADTIME LEADER AWARD WINNERS

LARGE SHOP WINNER
Commercial Tool and Die, Inc. (Comstock Park, MI)
A leading full-service manufacturer of plastic injection molds. Through its sister companies they provide fixtures, special machinery and custom molding. By providing responsive, 24-hour customer service, Commercial Tool has established a reputation for quality tooling with on-time delivery. Average leadtime on a project is 11 weeks. They measure leadtime from sales order to first shot. Average leadtime is now a metric on its organizational scorecard. The company’s continuous improvement efforts reduce disruptions and eliminate redundant manufacturing processes. Improvements become the new bestpractice through standardization and training to ensure these improvements are consistently applied and long-lasting.

SMALL SHOP WINNER
Extreme Tool and Engineering, Inc. (Wakefield, MI)
provides product and mold design, moldmaking, mold validation and inspection, mold process development low-volume/pilot production-injection molding. Opened in July of 1998 with six people and has grown as high as 55 people in 2005 to answer the call for increased capacity to meet a specific need. In January 2007 the difficult decision was made to reinvent the company and it was downsized. Using Hoshin Kanri with the guidance of MSOE Business Excellence Consultants, they completed a short- and long-term strategic plan and made many organizational changes and employed lean initiatives. The company has rebounded strongly after an uncharacteristic 2006 financial performance. Company sales for 2007 will show an increase of $500,000.00 with 15 less people, Sales per man increased 64 percent. Average leadtime on a project is five to six weeks: actual design and build time. This is maintained by a very detailed, component level shop management and scheduling system. Extreme has completed the journey from a moldmaker to a mold manufacturer.

LARGE SHOP HONORABLE MENTION
StackTeck Systems Ltd. (Brampton, Ontario, Canada) is a manufacturer of plastic injection molds in North America that handles the leadtime challenge, by bringing in a leading U.S. consultant firm to assist in a lean manufacturing initiative, resulting in leadtime reductions of 40 to 50 percent. The lean implementation included training in the principles of lean manufacturing and continuous improvement, which has been carried with a focus on the Theory of Constraints. They maintain their leadtimes by continuous improvement initiatives (lights out machining and project review meetings of jobs with all functional areas present; focused on process time reduction, with subsequent Kaizen); concurrent engineering and manufacturing on critical chain activities (the ability to release partially engineered components to the floor, to start machining, while the final design is being done in parallel); automated engineering; leveraging innovation in CAD/CAM (single integrated CAD/CAM system with associative updates, visibility of data by all engineering and manufacturing personnel and use of CAD 3-D viewers on manufacturing floor).