BEST PRACTICES

Best Practices in Secondary

Manufacturing Process
With the worlds largest installed capacity, Indo-MIMs modern facilities have a combined strength of
over 2700 skilled engineers, scientists, technicians and manufacturing associates. Both of its facilities
are ISO 9001:2008, ISO/TS 16949:2009, ISO 13485:2003 and AS 9100 Rev.C
certified. The capability to offer the best of world-class technology at competitive prices provides a
significant advantage to customers all over the world.

Indo-MIM has an integral

manufacturing set-up that
includes MIM process as well
as the in-house secondary
(post-MIM) processes for MIM
parts this entire journey
came a long way after having
begun in 1998. It has always
been a challenge for improving
productivity in this area of
post-MIM machining processes
since most of the operations
depend on the skill of the
people. We have been used
to a practice of hiring people
whenever we have higher load
in the shop.

focusing on productivity
improvement projects in ISP
(in-house secondary process)
and thereby reducing the manhours in secondary processes.
Generally secondary processes
carried out are press coining,
manually operated toggle
coining, drilling, reaming, 100 %
dimension checking, and 100%
visual inspection sometimes
using microscopes based on
critical requirements of the
customer.
History and Early
Implementation:

In the past, we used to produce

the parts in the job production
method. Parts were processed
at each processing station and
then moved from one process
to another without balancing
the cycle time. We observed
that this method of operation
resulted in
some operators
loaded heavily
whereas few
very less,
resulting in
less output
although
consuming
more manhours. Dr.
Shivashankar,
Vice President
- Operations
SMED / universal base plate concept for drilling machine
of Indo-MIM
With sales going up every year
by over 50%, we realized that
surviving in such an industry
will be very difficult unless
we accomplish an element of
de-skilling in our processes. It
is since 2009 that we started

30

www.martupdate.com

Ujwal Uday Kumar

had a dream of
bringing in cellular
manufacturing
concept in
secondary process.
This initiation
triggered into
action when we
started KAIZEN
events in ISP for
implementing cell
concepts like cycle
time, TAKT time
calculations and
allotting the jobs
to the operators
equally, so that
all are uniformly
loaded.
In the first KAIZEN
event itself we
could see that
manpower could
be reduced by
half for the same
output. It took
more than 4
Kaizen events for
us to completely
understand the
concept and
also for the
training of our
supervisors and
employees about
this concept.
In every kaizen
event, critical
parts with low

outputs were selected and

this gave an opportunity for
us to prove ourselves that this
will be a game changer for
Indo-MIM. Earlier the outputs
were monitored by supervisors
on hourly basis, however, now
these were converted to a
monitoring every 15 minutes.
The operator was asked to tick
mark the output sheets when
he gets one good part out
after finishing the complete
process cycle. This way, we had
an account of the operators
time clock. This monitoring
itself gave us the benefit of 10
% on time saving. Some initial
successes motivated us to start
digging deep into this concept
and start learning more about

this Lean manufacturing

concepts.
Culture of Kaizen Events:
One of the major benefits that
we found in a KAIZEN event
was that a team was formed
everytime with a process
owner as the leader. The team
consisted of the persons from
the supporting departments.
This team formation facilitated
brainstorming under the
guidance of experts in the
company and resulted in
the team to come out with
an optimum solution. The
team has to implementthe
solution within 5 days of the
Kaizen event. We deployed
the program of KAIZEN

production process reducing

cost and time to market. The
implementation of Kaizen
activities has immensely
helped in improving the
productivity thereby reducing
the overly hard work on
any individual. The effective
distribution of the work plays a
very important role in meeting

Sreenivasulu S
GM-Operations, Indo-MIM

Indo-MIM aims for customer

A wide array of in-house

secondary operation do have

secondary operations allows

a major role to play to achieve

the parts to stay under

the same. Above all, people

one roof throughout the

are our strength!

event whenever we faced

a productivity issue and we
found a best solution with the
team work, rather than an
individual working on it finding
a solution. The best benefit
that we saw, was that since the
decision was taken in a team
( as a group), there were no
communication gaps about
the decision taken in KAIZEN
event among the production
and service or supporting
departments. The ownership
was certain. Documentation
of the changes made during
KAIZEN event were done in the
system so that nobody missed
the implemented concept.
TPM Board

Output monitoring sheet at ISP for every 15 minutes.

Single piece flow concept with clear marking

October 2014

Multi fixturing concept

October2014
2014
October

the growing sales every year.

Low Cost Automation and

SMED:
Even the lean concept of
JIDOKA automation with
human touch was a right
selection for our reaming
applications, where manual
feed was replaced with auto
feed with the use of sensors
and hydraulics built in house by
our technicians. This low cost
automation is one of the Key
for our success which helped
us to double to triple times

satisfaction and in-house

improvement in productivity.
We could also see that the
set up time was more in ISP
due to non-standardization
of the fixturing concepts.
We now brought the SMED
concept where operator could
replace the setup for another
job within 5 minutes instead
of 15 minutes taken earlier.
This concept was deployed
for all the drilling machines
and coining fixtures, where
standard base plate/ universal
fixturing was for a large
variety of parts. This gave job
satisfaction to the operators in
addition to the savings in time
and fatigue.
Frequent calibration of the jigs
and fixtures was introduced to
monitor their life and improve
the capability of the fixture
there by improving the first
pass yield and thus reducing
the rework levels in ISP. This
helped us to save large amount
of reworks spent on reworking
parts.
TPM and SPC Implementation:
We could also observe that

www.martupdate.com
www.martupdate.com

3131

machine breakdown was

also one of the major factor
affecting productivity, since the
machines not ready for work
wasa huge loss in production.
Meanwhile, we conducted a
KAIZEN event on TPM (Total
Productive Maintenance)
of the key machines for
production, wherein major
factors which could be the
reason for breakdown were
listed down and with the help
of WHY WHY analysis the
team could come out with
solution. With this solution as
the basis, TPM team would
prepare a checklist with TPM
board fitted on the machine

and checks were carried out as

per the schedule displayed on
board. Regular checks of daily,
weekly, monthly basis were
prepared with green and red
token systems as shown in the
figure. This helped us for ZERO
BREAKDOWN of the machines
which indirectly helped us for
production improvements.
We also implemented the multi
cavity fixturing concept in all
areas of production where
we could find productivity
improvements up to 25 % and
also capability of the process
was monitored through SPC
system(Statistical Process

SPC monitoring

PMS System showing Target and Actual

Control) thereby fine tuning

the process and helping
eliminate 100% inspection.
Productivity Monitoring:

industry practices with the

right spirit, to sustain the
global positioning attained
in such a short span of time.
We believe in doing it right
from the first time; which
definitely make us apart from
our competitors in the global
MIM industry. We have always

Saikrishna Rayalu

32

believed in attaining Quality

Quality Head, Indo-MIM

by process using a pro-active

Indo-MIM has a rule of

through a post-mortem

thumb, that we believe in

approach. Customer is God

implementing the best of

for us.

www.martupdate.com

approach than by inspection

Recently we implemented
productivity monitoring
boards at ISP which displays
the actuals Vs. target, which
keeps the operator constantly
working and if any delay in
production or down time was
highlighted on the board as
RED, the supervisors could
attend to it and attend the
issues on the spot (Gemba).
Also Implementation of 5S
including 6thS for safety, we
could give a professional look
to our Organization and were
appreciated by our major
customers during their visit.In
every organization growth is a
never ending process and we

also would be learning in future

to improve every day.
The author Ujwal Uday Kumar
has been serving Indo-MIM
as the Manager, In-house
Secondary Process (ISP) since
ten years now. With 11 years
of overall industry experience,
Mr. Kumar has been efficiently
leading production team of
180 employees including 25
engineers. With responsible for
handling secondary operations
on MIM parts, he is actively
involved in productivity
improvement of critical parts
thereby reducing the lead
time and man-hours spent in
production. Timely delivery of
the products to the customers
is his priority. Not only in the
operations; implementing new
manufacturing concepts in the
shop floor with enhancing the
production of the parts is his
additional forte.
October 2014

October 2014

www.martupdate.com

33