high wip

I would recommend first thing would be to get out on the manufacturing floor and observe what is going on. Talk to the workers and the supervisors as to what they consider problem areas (you may not get the same answers). There are many potential causes for high WIP from physical to political so spend some time evaluating the information you gather before starting efforts to reduce it. You won't be able to contend with all the potential causes at once so pick perhaps an individual product line and begin working on that.

Once you begin to lower WIP, watch for other areas that can come up as problems.

An easy reading book that does a good job of illustrating some basics I think is "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. It is written as a novel rather than a "text book".

Regards and Good Luck,

Second "The Goal"

Also an overview of Dr. Deming - it really does work better if you do it right the first time. It can be hard to get there, though.

If you can find it get a copy of Sloma's "the Turnaround Manager's Handbook". Maybe the most complete set of analytical tools ever done.

tom

Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.

You will have little impact on the company unless upper management wants to change how it runs its business. Inventory and WIP especially is a symptom of the process to make your product. If you use shop orders to make a bunch of parts at a time you will have the inventory caused by the materials coming in to make the bunch of the parts and this inventory will move from station to station as the parts flow through your shop. You will have no finished inventory until the first part goes through the final operation. Now if you do one piece flow or come close the one piece flow inventory will be substantially reduced but that means the process on how you make the parts must change dramatically.