Ideally, a major MacLellan contract requires between 4-8 weeks for launch planning. For various reasons, that duration is not always available. For example, we were awarded a major OEM contract in early December and planned to commence service in February. Within a few days of award, we were informed that the incumbent supplier would not fulfill their contract commitment and thus the customer requested that we launch in 2 weeks, with shutdown scheduled shortly after. Although we have launched smaller contracts in as short a time frame as 1 week, this was a much larger endeavor involving almost 50 team members and management.
The MacLellan operations and human resource team worked tirelessly to free resources in an effort to not only provide management support but also retain the majority of the work force and key personnel on site. We were able to successfully accomplish the shutdown cleaning schedule showing improvement in quality and productivity.
Other improvement ideas that we brought to this customer included:
- We implemented electrical conversion boards to turn a 480v drop into 12 120 volt drops. This enabled us to power more equipment and perform more work without causing delays because of loss of power.
- We used a higher quality tack cloth to reduce cleaning times.
- We introduced more effective, water soluble, environmentally friendly, and HAPS free chemicals which both reduced cleaning time and improved quality.
- We installed tacky mesh in key areas to control airborne particulate and improved product quality while reducing costs.
These introductions and several others caused the Director of Manufacturing to state, “MacLellan has shown me more in three weeks than their competitor did over the last three years.”
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