A Start-Up business requires an efficient and effective Order to Ship process
17th of August, 2020
Our Client had established a new business to market and produce custom-made golf equipment. The project entailed detailed advice, training and hands-on support to set up the processes to receive and fulfil customer orders.
The Company
The customer was a start-up company set up to sell bespoke, custom-designed golf putters to customers within the Scottish golf market and globally via website sales. The business was owned and ran by a Scottish golf professional and coach. He worked in the business by himself and had started the business to compliment his other business ventures within the golfing sector. The company was run from a small cabin within a golf driving range and had recently purchased a CNC milling machine and other equipment intending to start sales and delivery within the following months.
The Challenge
The Company had started trading and had all the sales processes in place to begin to accept customer orders. However, the Owner was not from a production or assembly background and recognised the risks of starting a production process with no experience and knowledge of manufacturing and quality management principles
The Owner had no formal training in CNC milling and was using advice from the person from whom he had purchased the equipment and from U-Tube videos. The risks of process quality defects and waste were to be highlighted and eliminated.
The task was to implement world-class order processing manufacturing and quality and safety systems within the business suitably scaled for use by the Owner and future assembly staff. In addition, examine areas of risk within the design interface with the customer and a third party CAD provider.
The timescale for the project was short as customers had begun to order putters and the funding available limited the working hours. The project needed to be effectively and efficiently managed and focused on key deliverables.
The Action
Several meetings and discussions with the Owner to understand the business plan, marketing strategy and operational flow.
The key deliverables were swiftly identified and the scope of work defined and agreed;
- establish assembly flow and a documented method – a simple, documented process to deliver consistent and efficient completion of the assembly process.
- define a quality plan for the assembly process - key hold and checkpoints were defined to manage the production of custom products with the objective of zero defects and zero quality escapes to customer.
- housekeeping and maintenance schedules – the introduction of 5S and TPM methods to provide simple and effective measures to secure operator safety and reduce operator and key equipment downtime.
A focussed action plan was developed with work done both on and off-site.
Hands-on work with the Owner within his workshop to train and advise him on the new workflow and to review and improve workplace housekeeping, organisation and controls.
A 5S exercise took place within the assembly area with all three work area radically changed and improved.
Sourcing activities took place and communications were made with key suppliers who would be able to assist this project and with the company going forward.
The impact on the Company
The project had a significant and immediate impact on the company. This provided the confidence for the Owner to fully launch his marketing campaigns safe in the knowledge that a simple but highly effective process was documented and in place to manage orders through to shipment. The processes were scalable to enable the business to grow and recruit staff with secure manufacturing principles.
The sourcing activity led to several new supplier introductions to the Owner;
- Bubl packaging
- Easywebsites
- Inxpress
Training, advice and guidance was provided in;
- Manufacturing good practice
- Quality
- TPM
- 5S
- Health and Safety
- Packing and Courier services
- Sales and marketing
Documents produced for the business were;
- Health and Safety Risk assessment
- Standard Work
- Process flowchart
- Workshop layout
- TPM schedule
- TPM logs
- 5S photos
- Checksheets
