Continuous Production: Shops in Action

   The trend toward more CNC (computer-numeric-controlled) devices is already moving fabrication into a faster gear; now, some shops are taking that a step further and adopting continuous production, a manufacturing process carried over from the glass industry.
   Its goals are reducing errors and interruptions; if it sounds like a way to increase production further, it is. As early adopters in the stone industry are finding, it’s also not necessarily just for large production shops; for some, it’s a way to deal with personnel issues and ensure a particular level of quality.
   But, just as every shop has its own unique needs, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to moving to continuous production. It can be a slow – and expensive – process requiring considerable commitment.
   What follows are the experiences of four different companies – each utilizing equipment from a different manufacturer – as they move toward continuous production.
  
"Material handling is the key”
Courter Company Inc.
Garden City, Ga.
  
   What do you do if you’re adding a product line and you aren’t optimistic you can get the employees you need? For Chuck Smoak, vice president of production for the Courter Company Inc., the answer was to automate.
   “The job market in the Savannah area is terrible from an employer standpoint,” says Smoak. “When you drive down the road, even the Coke® truck has a ‘Help Wanted’ sign on it. We were having enough trouble staffing the rest of our operation.”
   Courter has been in the countertop business for several years, initially focusing on the solid-surface fabrication business and installing granite cut by a supplier. A few years ago the company purchased a CNC machine to cut its Corian™.
   “We started looking at how to get into the granite business three years ago,” says Smoak. “We started doing research because we had no clue on fabrication.”
   After visiting several shops, the one thing that struck Smoak was how many people were involved in the process. He admits he had doubts about being able to staff a new shop.
   From there, he moved onto equipment manufacturers. As part of that process, he had the opportunity to visit Minneapolis-based Pollux Inc., the first shop to fully automate with Löffler Maschinenbau GmbH equipment in this country.
   Taking what he saw there, Smoak went to Italy. Among his stops was the CMS S.p.A. plant in Zogna.
   “I explained what we wanted to do and the engineer said, ‘That’s what we want to do; we just need somebody to purchase the first system so we can build it,’” he explains. “We came up with a concept, and about 18 months later they started delivering machinery.”
   Smoak’s research didn’t stop there. Because the company fabricates Zodiaq™ natural quartz along with granite, he talked with people at DuPont Surfaces during the time the system was being put together.
   “We wanted efficiencies doing that, too, and they had input for us,” he say.
   Also important was the size of the project. Smoak explains that the shop had to go into a 16,000 ft² building the company owned.
   “Every square inch of that is used, believe me,” he says. “But, we do have the luxury of taking on 8,000 ft² more within the next six months, and we’re contemplating adding another router in the first half of 2008.”
   Recognizing that it was CMS North America’s first attempt at continuous production, Smoak says he wasn’t concerned that it took approximately four months to get the system fully operational once it went in. He notes he and his two programmers and three shop people were literally starting at the beginning.
   “We felt we had to learn this from ground zero,” he says. “We’d train one person at a time, which probably wasn’t very efficient.”
   Smoak has mixed feelings about the rest of the process. For instance, he says he and his employees weren’t aware in advance about what needed to be done to the facility, particularly in terms of the placement of trenches, power and related items.
   On the other hand, he praises the technicians from CMS for staying an extra three weeks to make sure everything was working properly.
   His other complaint – for which he blames himself – is that after the stone comes off the saw, it moves on manual rollers.
   “I talk with my guys, and sure, we have everyday problems, but we’re able to solve them,” Smoak says. “The only thing I’d really change, though, is I’d automate some of my rollers. Material handling is what makes this process work.”
   But, work it does. Now that the system is up and running, it puts out about 175 lineal feet per day, and the only hand tool the shop has is a small grinder for polishing the ends of splashes.
   “It’s a very profitable part of the business,” says Smoak. “It’s also exceeded our expectations. We looked at our business plan last week and we’re triple our projections.”
  
"I've made it the way I want it”
Granite and Marble by Malave
Greensboro, N.C.
  
   Although he learned the trade the old-fashioned way – starting as an apprentice – Len Malave has also been an early and enthusiastic adapter of stone-production technology.
   Now, he’s utilizing his long relationships with two major Italian equipment manufacturers to get exactly the continuous production system he wants.
   “We started with the first Z. Bavelloni CNC machines in the United States and Zonato bridge saws a decade ago,” he says. “When we did that, we bought what was the latest in stone-working equipment. More recently, though, we recognized we had to go a step further in eliminating problems that arise from manual labor.”
   Malave isn’t afraid to admit that a couple shop accidents had driven his workers’ comp costs sky-high. At the same time, he was running his equipment 24 hours a day just to keep up with demand.
   Although he’s used his shop to train other equipment buyers on those machines, Malave says once he made the commitment to expand his automation further, he began shopping several manufacturers.
   “I wanted to see how these systems work,” he says. “I was impressed with some of the things I saw. However, working with Gamma Zeta S.r.l. (manufacturer of the Zonato saws), it gave me the opportunity to work with their people in Italy and help develop our line.”
   Not that it’s been an easy task. Malave says he’s devoted a great deal of time and research to issues such as making sure digital templating would work with the system he wanted.
   Still, he says the easiest part of the job has been getting the information he needed from people in the industry. The hardest part: convincing the engineers to do what he wanted.
   “When you explain to them that this is what you want it to do, they look at you like you’ve got three heads,” he explains. “They’ll say, ‘This is how the machine has to be made,’ but in the end, if it doesn’t do what we want it to do, it’s just another piece of equipment in the shop.”
   Not surprisingly, what Malave had hoped to have completed by early 2007 now won’t be finished until the first quarter of 2008. Still, he admits he’s lucky that he has a 30,000 ft² shop – large enough to makes the changes the new system will require.
   “We’re moving it in and replacing some of the pieces already,” he says. “By January, we’ll have everything changed over. We can’t do it right away because we have to keep working. We’re switching everything in the midst of continuing our regular production right now.”
   One problem, he confesses, is that despite his cutting-edge equipment, not all of the Malave shop had been automated, and that’s had to be done in the interim. Where possible, he’s added robotics.
   Still, Malave is optimistic that when the system goes fully online early next year, he’ll see some dramatic changes in his bottom line.
   “I’m eliminating half my employees and at least doubling my production,” he predicts. “I’m also counting on working just two shifts, rather than three. Even so, we’re adding four or five installation crews and we intend to do a lot of marketing because I expect to add new product lines. We’re finding other avenues for our stone.”
   His advice for others who are thinking about getting into continuous production: “Consult with people who know the equipment and know the stone industry.”
  
"You have to have your boots on”
Morningstar Marble and Granite
Topsham, Maine
  
   You don’t always find large-corporation thinking in a small-town business, but Nick Whatley of Morningstar Marble and Granite made the move toward continuous production because of reading he did about lean manufacturing.
   Lean is derived from the Toyota Production System, which strives to reduce process variations; Whatley wondered if it could be applied to natural-stone fabrication.
   “It’s probably easier said than done,” he says. “Stone is more of a moving target than steel, but I saw some of the literature and became pretty interested in picking up stone a whole lot less and moving things more directly.”
   Ultimately, his other goal was to find a way to keep costs down while keeping quality up. The company’s motto is, “The best possible work at all times,” but Whatley says the combination of a lot of older manual equipment and the extra attention his employees put in their work was making his prices really high.
   “I saw this as a means of being competitive while keeping the utmost quality,” he says. “We’re just lessening the costs associated with the added attention to detail. It was definitely necessary for us to get into more automated equipment.”
   Although he looked at several manufacturers’ systems – many of them doing much more than he felt he needed – Whatley opted to go with the French manufacturer Thibaut S.A., aided by its U.S. distributor, EuroStone Machine. 
   “We had been working with Thibaut equipment from the early years of our company and were excited when they got into automated production machinery for countertop shops,” he says.
   Some 15 different floor plan layouts later, Whatley says they arrived at one he felt he could live with.  Essentially, it meant straightening out the lines of flow through the shop.
   “Every machine is in a new place, and we’re in the process of making it almost impossible to let things pile up anywhere,” he says. “We did this in the same shop area, and in fact we have more space now because we used to have carts everywhere that were full of work pieces waiting to be worked on for long periods of time.”
   Still, Whatley stresses that it’s not a direct flow conveyor system.
   “We do a lot of honing and brushing, build stone sinks, recessed soap shelves, and other processes that impede the flow of standard kitchen production,” he explains.
   However, he has reduced inventory because as soon as something is done it has another place to go that adds value.
   Because his goal isn’t to become a huge production shop, he also went with equipment that he felt could double his capacity without a reduction in quality.
   “We don’t want to be huge; we just want to do great work at a fair price,” Whatley observes.
   He adds that if there’s been one surprise in the process, it’s the necessity of training his employees to think differently. Getting a whole lot of work done at one station isn’t as important as relating it to the step before and the step after.
   “The transition has been huge,” he says. “Everybody needs to be on the same page. It’s a synchronized process.”
   Much of that training has fallen to Whatley and shop manager Jason Kramer, and he says first he had to learn the principles himself. And, he says, not all his employees are totally onboard yet.
   Nor is the system fully operational. He says the company is still sticking with basic production on its five-axis saw while people get comfortable using it, and it will take several months to assess where the conveyors should be placed.
   “We’re still using carts while we learn how to make the process more continuous,” he says. “When we see something moving back and forth between two spots, that’s where a conveyor will go, but we haven’t committed to that yet.
   While he appreciates the technical help he received from Thibaut, Whatley believes what’s really made this work for him is his own commitment to continuous production.
   “It’s good if everyone knows you know what’s going on,” he says. “As the owner, you really need to know how to operate the machines. You have to be the leader. You have to have your boots on.”
  
"You couldn’t design a one-size-fits-all system”
StoneTrends LLC
Chesterfield, Mo.
  
   For Ted Liebig Sr., the move to continuous production was a matter of “when,” rather than “if.” Liebig came to the natural-stone industry after manufacturing other types of countertops, and all three of his laminate plants are continuous production.
   “The machines utilized in continuous production have been improved significantly,” he says. “In the last 10 years we’ve taken some major steps in full automation.”
   Although he had anticipated going to continuous production from the time StoneTrends LLC opened its doors, when he began seriously investigating the possibility in 2005, Liebig says there were a couple factors that moved him from thought to action. The booming demand for Cambria Natural Quartz™ – which is a StoneTrends specialty – pushed the company’s ability to meet demand in its 17,000 ft² facility.
   “We also feel that short response time will always be a strong sales feature, and automation would enable us to provide it,” he says. “And, labor-intensive operations are continually searching for qualified personnel.”
   Although the company started with primarily Park Industries equipment, Liebig says that, after making the decision, Stone Trends looked at several different systems using a variety of criteria.
   Some of the item were fairly conventional, such as reliability and ease of operation. Others were more specific to the StoneTrends’ operation, such as system scalability, plant design assistance and post-installation support.
   “A number of these issues were addressed by several manufacturers, but Park Industries was the only company which addressed them all,” says Liebig.
   Once the company decided to go with Park, Liebig says there were several planning sessions, some at the StoneTrends’ plant, and others at Park’s St. Cloud, Minn., headquarters.
   “We set forth in considerable detail our expectations, and Park presented a timetable explaining precisely how its Integrated Production System (IPS) would be installed,” he explains. “Between the two of us, the documentation was considerable and we went through countless iterations before we were able to establish the final footprint.”
   One advantage StoneTrends had with the process is that it had access to a 50,000 ft² building across the street from its old plant. While Park was installing the new system and getting it operational, the company continued production at its old plant.
   “At that point, we began to cycle the employees through the new plant to learn their new jobs on a semi-piecemeal basis,” says Liebig. “Park operated the new plant for about 30 days and we’d send a couple guys over, and then a couple other guys for a few days to learn their jobs.”
   He adds that he didn’t see any employee problems in making the switch to the new facility.
   “We really engaged them early on, and as a result, there weren’t a lot of obstacles,” he says. “I think there were some new things to learn, but we’d been working on that the entire time we were getting the facility set up, so it wasn’t a drastic change. They were already thinking about how they’d do their jobs in that new environment.”
   Good communication seems to have been the key to Liebig’s success in moving his company to continuous production. While communication with employees was important to making the switch, he says it couldn’t have happened without an excellent understanding with Park over what the company wanted and where it plans to go.
   “It’s unquestionably a partnership endeavor,” Liebig says. “You have to communicate to the people providing the system what your objectives are, or they can’t do a good job of designing it for you. Continuous production has broad applicability, but I don’t think there can be a turnkey vanilla system.”

 This article first appeared in the June 2007 print edition of Stone Business. ©2007 Western Business Media