Saving Is Not Saving

We were building a ceiling tile manufacturing plant in Russia. Like most projects, the engineering team was directed to save money, as long as it didn’t negatively impact safety or productivity. As most were unfamiliar with doing business in Russia, they used their experience with known vendors to acquire equipment for the plant. If there wasn’t enough capacity to fill equipment needs, the project team worked with local consultants to identify the “best” options for equipment purchases.

A few years earlier we had shuttered a plant in Alabama. Equipment was stored in the hopes it might be used for future projects. The project team identified equipment they thought they could use and had it shipped to a contractor, who was responsible to inspect it and bring it up to optimal operating condition. This was done to save more than $1 million for the project.

Two weeks before plant start-up, I traveled to Russia to assess and optimize the flow of ceiling tiles through the new production line. I had done this work many times in other manufacturing plants and was known as the flow “expert”.

When I arrived, I was assigned a team of two mechanics and one production operator. We were going to send ceiling tiles through various parts of the line and make adjustments and corrections where necessary to improve the flow.

Very few tools were available for our use. I packed string, levels, and flat steel bars to help us with the work. Our initial assessment and work through the line went smoothly. We identified conveyers that were out of level, causing the ceiling tiles to skew and jam. Fixing these problems was simple enough. Soon we had tiles flowing smoothly through the first half of the line. Until we reached the equalizer.

The equalizer is a large panel saw. Its purpose is to cut ceiling boards into finished ceiling tiles. The board goes through a first set of saws, strikes a transfer, and then is driven through a second set of saws positioned at a right angle.

Boards were going through the saws at an angle. Instead of tiles looking like rectangles, they looked like trapezoids. They weren’t going to fit into ceiling grid that way.

There were many possible reasons for the angled cuts. After resolving many issues, the tiles still weren’t correct. What was going on? Normally, fixes happen independently of the saw assemblies. Saws are typically located in a level and square way on a frame. Everything else controls how the boards come to the saws in a square or angled fashion.

In this case, the problem was in the saw assembly. We locked out and climbed up on the equipment to take a closer look. The equalizer was freshly painted and made to look as if it was new. But it was far from new. There were many missing or broken parts. Because of that, we couldn’t control the boards as they were being cut. Broken motor mounts caused the saw blades to rotate in an elliptical fashion. How did the contractor miss this critical detail? How did we miss this during equipment inspection?

We spent the rest of our time repairing or replacing broken parts. Some things couldn’t be fixed immediately. We ordered parts and equipment from other locations. Some had to be air-freighted from the United States at considerable cost. All fixes were completed prior to the official plant start-up, but took valuable resources away from other critical work. All of this could have been avoided had the project team recognized the critical influence of the equalizer and chosen to invest in the right tools for the new plant. Expected savings disappeared due to the lack of All Tools Available.