THE TIME IS NOW! GET LEAN! "Right Solutions guarantee brighter futures"

California alone has lost over 167,000 Manufacturing jobs since July 2000. Stated another way California has lost one out of every 12 manufacturing jobs since Jul 2000. This represents an 8.6% loss in California's total manufacturing employment. Compared with other states in the U.S., California has suffered the biggest loss. California's manufacturing Industry is a powerful engine to the state's ecomony.

(PRWEB) October 18, 2003 --The national economic storm that began in the latter half of 2000 has hit California with a vengeance, forcing the loss of over 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the state. Within the month of July 2003 alone, factories ceded 6,500 jobs according to California-state figures released as of August 8, 2003.

The aerospace sector, in particular, has sustained some of the heaviest casualties. A November 2002 report by The Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry (called for by President Bush) calculated a national loss of 24,500 aerospace-related jobs from 1996 to 2001. While California still employs a fair number of aerospace workers, states such as Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas and Texas actually gained aerospace jobs during this same period. Obviously, employers and jobs are exiting California.

No surprise, either, given California's current business climate of high energy costs, workers compensations expenses that have skyrocketed almost 100% in one year and hefty business taxes that are expected to rise in order to solve the state's budget deficit.

Yet, this dark cloud has a silver lining as proactive aerospace manufacturers are fighting back by adopting lean manufacturing techniques. Under the guidance of manufacturing technology consultants, one local manufacturer managed to save 28-30 existing jobs, create an estimated 12 to 15 new jobs, while achieving a ROI that exceeded 5:1.

The challenge to save 30 aerospace jobs in California
Operating from three buildings totaling 225,000 square-feet within a 10 square-mile radius in Southern California, Ace Clearwater Enterprises is one of the fastest growing suppliers and manufacturers of high quality aerospace parts in the United States, with approximately $24 million in annual sales. The companys 182 employees design and build complex, formed and welded assemblies for major aerospace and power generation companies.

"We've been fairly successful at keeping our customer base, but commercial aerospace isn't exactly doing real well right now," laments Gary Johnson, Vice President of Ace Clearwater. "There are several parts houses that are no longer around. We didn't want to go out of business, too, so we realized that we had to take advantage of any opportunity to expand our business."

Such an opportunity materialized two years ago when one of Ace Clearwater's customers, Honeywell, decided to move away from manufacturing its own formed details and, instead, focus on design and systems integration. Honeywell first considered moving the plant to Mexico, momentarily putting 28-30 California jobs at risk. However, the extension of an unofficial "right of first refusal" to Ace Clearwater resulted in the company's decision to purchase the Honeywell operation.

"Honeywell approached us and said, 'You can buy our press and support operations, however, you can't buy the land,'" recalls Johnson. "That meant we had to move everything out of their facility near downtown Los Angeles."

Given the high price of real estate and the spiraling costs of operating in California, Ace Clearwater's senior management also considered moving the Honeywell equipment to an alternative location. Yet, management preferred to continue growing its existing Southern California base. Consequently, a vacant, company-owned facility located in city of Compton, California was chosen as the new site.

In order to stay in California, Ace Clearwater still had to find a way to shoehorn all of the heavy equipment (three hydro-forming presses, a 400-ton Lien Chei press, a custom clean line, annealing ovens and all support equipment) housed in Honeywell's 180,000 square-foot facility, into Ace Clearwater's 20,000 square foot plant in Compton.

"It was a pretty immense project, and we did not have the staff to handle the logistics of laying the facility out," admits Johnson. "Additionally, the Compton facility was receiving some equipment that was new to us, like the hydro-forming equipment and new hydraulic presses. We were concerned that we didn't have the internal expertise to do the industrial engineering for this machinery."

"What made the task even more challenging, is that Honeywell was very adamant that we had to move everything, and be up-to-speed on making parts for them again, in just six months," continues Johnson. "With such a big task, we knew we needed help. Since we had used the California Manufacturing Technology Consulting for several projects over the years, we contacted them this time to pull off the Honeywell acquisition."

Headquartered in Torrance, with regionally-focused teams throughout the state, California Manufacturing Technology Consulting (CMTC) is a consulting firm whose sole mission is to help California manufacturing companies increase their competitive advantage through improved methods of management and manufacturing. A private, nonprofit organization, CMTC is partially funded through the Californias Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency Office of Small Business under the Manufacturing Technology Program. Some funding is also obtained through the Federal Manufacturing Extension Partnership, under the auspices of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).

."The move was a massive '24/7' nonstop effort for several months," Johnson describes. "One press was 80,000 pounds. It went 22 feet underground, and we still had to raise the roof 12 feet to get it in. It was a terrific example of really great teamwork. CMTC was absolutely awesome in terms of the logistic coordination."

"With the help of CMTC, we were actually 'on line' three weeks ahead of schedule," explains Johnson. "What made it work is that lean manufacturing techniques were integrated into the whole move. Everything was done with an eye toward being as efficient as possible. A lot of it had to do with how the facility was actually laid out and how the work was designed to flow through there. I have to give CMTC 100% of the credit on that one."

Quick results yield improved competitiveness and more jobs
"The new plant is now extremely efficient and the place is running like a top," says Johnson. "In looking at the data, our competitiveness increased by at least 50 percent because we were able to improve the building of our parts. There's a lot of operations outside of annealing and heat treating that we needed to do with our drop hammer operation, that we now don't have to do because of our new hydro-form and hydraulic presses. It's a much more efficient way of forming metal."

The lean-manufacturing project not only resulted in keeping the plant in California and retaining the manufacturing jobs, but the moving and building-improvement costs stayed within the California economy. Ultimately, the new plant layout and the incorporation of lean manufacturing principles resulted in an estimated $5.2 million-dollar sales increase.

To help reduce training costs, CMTC, for one, holds a contract with the California Employment Training Panel (ETP) that allows manufacturers to take advantage of $2 million in employee training funds. This frees up funds for both classroom and hands-on training at the site. Since its inception in 1982, the ETP has disbursed over $762 million in training funds, with over 417,000 California workers trained. Approximately 41,400 California businesses have been served 80% of which have fewer than 250 employees.

Implementing the right solutions makes for brighter futures
Once lean manufacturing techniques are fully learned, implemented and maintained, businesses commonly experience reductions in production costs, overhead, factory floor usage, and work-in-progress inventory levels. A fiscal year-2003 survey of 165 CMTC clients by NIST identified the following results from the implementation of lean manufacturing techniques: a total annualized sales increase of $100 million, a total annualized cost saving of $16 million.

For more information regarding lean manufacturing, contact CMTC at 1149 W. 190th Street, Suite 2014; Gardena, CA 90248; (800) 300 CMTC; (310) 263-3060; Fax
(310) 263-3062; or www.cmtc.com.

# # #