Making Money: Is That Really Necessary?

Remember in Eli Goldratt's book, The Goal. Alex, a manufacturing plant manager, runs into an old contact, Jonah, at the airport. They briefly discuss business. As Jonah is about to board the plane, he says to Alex, "Come on, Alex! Quickly! Tell me the real goal (of your manufacturing organization), if you know what it is." Jonah leaves with Alex perplexed. After a few attempts, he still couldn't find the right answer. Later he realizes, the goal is to make money!

Often manufacturers must juggle the demands of maintaining product performance and high quality while reducing costs and increasing profitability. Review of the raw material selection and inspection process may introduce avenues for savings. Consider the following items:

Chemical Composition:

  1. Does the material/alloy meet our design requirements?
  2. Could we restrict or expand the range of chemical composition to meet the design requirements, and reduce scrap by improving material work-ability (forming, machining,&welding)?
  3. Could a change in our specification reduce our cost of quality, by reducing corrosion or wear failures?
  4. Are the materials we receive certified to our specifications? Does our method of certifying materials comply with our quality manual? Are we sure we are getting what we expect?
  5. Do our materials continue to meet design specifications after secondary treatments and conditioning has been performed?
  6. Would routine sample testing of incoming materials reduce the costs of manufacturing downtime, customer dissatisfaction and returns?

Material Form&Size:

  1. Would forging, casting or powder metallurgy serve our needs better?
  2. Have we specified dimensions or tolerances that are custom for our supplier? Can we save money by working with their standards?

Conditioning&Surface Finishing:

  1. Can we eliminate any secondary conditioning or tempering processes by ordering them directly from the supplier?
  2. Can we order our final surface finish from the supplier? If not, is the finish currently supplied compatible for our final finishing steps?
  3. Can we reduce cosmetic and performance defects by changing the conditioning or surface treatments of the materials supplied?

Descriptions:

  1. Have we specified our materials with the right language so as not to imply a more "expensive" form?
  2. Have we used the correct descriptions to ensure we will get what we want?

Understanding Defects&Failures:

  1. Are we making the most of our defects and failures? Are we learning from our mistakes?
  2. Can we improve our processes by understanding the root cause of material and part failure?

There are other ways you may save money in your material selections. Please feel free to contact us to explore your options. We've been serving the material evaluation needs of manufacturers for over 25 years. We're confident we can help.

The Goal, A Process of Ongoing Improvement, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt&Jeff Cox, North River Press, Inc. 1992.


April 1, 1997 by Fred Hochgraf

Published May 1, 1997, in our Nuts & Bolts, Issue 7 newsletter.
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