What do airports, overnight courier services, and warehouse distributors have in common? They all need to move high volumes of heavy materials from point A to point B quickly and with as little manpower as possible, and they are all customers of Portec Flomaster.

Portec is a manufacturer of specialty belt conveyors, and its product portfolio includes belt power curves, spiral curves, spiral chutes, angle merge, and straight belts that help customers achieve often difficult tasks, such as sending items up a slope or around a bend. But the Canon City, Colo.-based company isn’t just finding new ways to help its customers get their products out the door faster—it is implementing several lean manufacturing strategies to do the same for itself.

Joe Forte

One to four
In the past, Portec assembled conveyors using a straight-through cell manufacturing methodology. The sequential cells stretched from one end of the plant to the other, meaning employees were spending too much time walking from one station to the next to get all the tools and parts they needed to do the job.

Last year, Portec decided change was due. Using its flat turn belt line to start, the company redesigned its straight-through cells into four individual lean cells, which are producing four to five units per day for a total average of about 16. “That’s a 60% increase in productivity. Using straight-through manufacturing, we were producing about 10 units a day,” said Joe Forte, VP of operations. The company got the first cell, which acted as a prototype, up and running in December of last year and spent several months ironing out the wrinkles. By April 2006, the rest of the cells were online.

Because the lean cells eliminate non-value-added steps in the manufacturing process, Portec is seeing more output using the same amount of labor. Instead of having to walk 50 feet to get a part or a tool, everything an employee needs is within reach. “We literally counted how many steps it took employees to get the tools or parts they need and bring them back to their workstations. It took away from their productivity. That is just the way the straight flow through works: products go from one cell to the next, but not everything employees need is readily accessible,” Forte explained.

Each lean cell is run by a self-directed work team. Teaching employees to focus on their own parameters, what they need to approach management for, and what types of decisions they can make on their own took several months, but the effort was well worth it. “Now, management doesn’t have to oversee operations constantly. The employees are responsible for their own decisions,” Forte said.

“A self-directed work team puts the decision of how to best do something into the hands of the person doing it.” Not only are employees getting the job done faster and better, they also feel a sense of ownership, which is crucial to satisfaction and retention.

When the first cell was still in beta mode, the company heard feedback from several naysayers who didn’t think the concept would fly—until they tried it. Forte said that anyone working inside the cell immediately fell in love with the new process. “Since we converted the other three cells, some of the biggest resistors have come to me and said ‘I never believed in this before, but now that I’m a part of it, it makes a lot sense.’ People resist change, and transitioning to lean manufacturing requires a change in attitude and methodology. But since we started, I haven’t heard anything negative.”

For Portec, ISO 2000:9001 certification ties into the recently implemented lean manufacturing strategies. Forte says that certification is more than just another plaque on the wall. It is the way the company operates from top to bottom. “Quality is not building the best product possible, but building the right product to fulfill the customer’s expectations,” he said. “It’s a quality process as opposed to a quality product.”

Making products to fit customers’ specific needs is what Portec does best. “We do not build a standard product. If someone wants a conveyor to slant at a 45-degree angle, we can do that. If they want a 43.5-degree angle, we can do that as well. What allows us to do that quickly and accurately is something that isn’t part of lean, but if you think about it, it is a good lean principle,” Forte said. It’s a system called parametrics.

Parametrics involves a series of formulas written by one of the company’s engineers that tie into an Excel spreadsheet. By changing variable parameters on the spreadsheet, new calculations are formed and transferred into a three-dimensional, wire-frame drawing. A flat pattern is then generated and converted into a DXF file that goes to the shop floor and feeds into the numerical control machinery. This process is completed in minutes, as opposed to the days or weeks other companies need to get their specially engineered products to the shop floor. “The process was developed independent of lean, but it saves time and energy, which are two leading lean concepts.”