The company: Eaton Electrical’s Milton, Ont.-based Low Voltage Distribution Assembly (LVDA) plant manufactures electrical distribution equipment, such as panelboards, switchboards and transfer switches, for areas that need electrical power such as high-rise apartments, office buildings, commercial sites, industrial buildings and hospitals.

The challenge: In a rapidly growing and increasingly challenging industry, the company hopes to continue with — and improve upon — the waste-reducing strategies it implemented in 2003.

The Innovation: By effectively implementing lean manufacturing into its plant, the company earned the confidence of its head office and a $3 million investment soon followed.

A clean start
Before we set foot in Eaton Electrical’s Milton, Ont.-based manufacturing plant, Dwayne Kolodka, the facility’s Operational Excellence Manager, offers a pre-emptive apology.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says. “We’re going through major renovations right now.”

At first, it’s not immediately clear what he’s talking about. The Low Voltage Distribution Assembly (LVDA) — where the company manufactures panelboards, switchboards, automatic transfer switches and power distribution units for commercial buildings — like many lean plants, is impeccably neat. Every tool is in its place, and all inventory is organized and tucked away. The plant’s layout flows smoothly, making the most of its 111,000 square feet. And the floors gleam.

The only two areas that could be considered “messy” are tucked to the side. And unlike many plants, the disarray is a sign of success — representative of the next step in the company’s lean journey. A massive turret punching machine — that will allow the company to store steel inside it before it punches the appropriate parts — is in the middle of construction. Nearby is a blocked off area that will soon be the plant’s new paint line — another part of the $3 million investment the plant received from its head office in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Since Eaton implemented lean manufacturing practices across its 235 plants in 2003, this facility has ranked number one for three years running. It used Eaton’s eight lean tools — that include value stream mapping, 5S, total productive maintenance, and Kanban techniques, among others — to free up 32,000 square feet of floor space, reduce panelboard cycle time to six minutes, boost on-time delivery from 72 per cent to 92 per cent, and reduce inventory costs by $500,000.

Its successes have earned the 200 employee facility attention from the company’s head office — and expensive new equipment to increase its efficiency. “You have to build corporate confidence before you get the money,” said John Klein, the company’s plant manager. The path to building corporate confidence started with employee involvement — and it proved to be one of the most difficult steps in the process. “The biggest challenge was changing the culture of the people,” says Joe Fisher, the Operation Excellence Manager for Eaton Electrical’s Canadian operations. “We were always a company that embraced change, but this time we wanted to make changes to the shop floor and involve the workers there. It was tough because we had never included them before.”

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