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Lehigh Press Puerto Rico
is located in
Juncos and it manufactures inserts and labels for the
healthcare, food and general consumer sectors. Production is
consumed locally and is also exported to Latin America and
United States. The company has approximately 140 employees.
The Challenge:
Lehigh’s management had given away profit
margins in exchange for volume; they understood they had to
identify means to be more effective in order to recover the
necessary profit margin.
Solution:
Lehigh Press was invited to participate in
the Green Supply Network (GSN) program sponsored by the
Environmental Protection Agency through PRiMEX and the MEP
centers. This program promotes its initiative known as "Lean
and Clean" based on the Lean Manufacturing methodology which
is intended to reduce environmental wastes in operational
processes.
After attending this meeting, Lehigh Press
decided to participate in the program and contacted PRiMEX
to assist. The first stage was to complete a competitive
review questionnaire. Using this data, a transformation
planner was prepared to measure their level of performance
against others within the same industry sector. These
results showed improvement opportunities ranging from
on-time delivery to energy utilization.
The second phase was followed with a Value
Stream Mapping which included training and development of
current and future value stream maps. This allowed
opportunities for potential operational savings and the
increase of profit margins. An action plan was put in place
to address this.
The third stage was to develop a Process Map
to optimize resources utilization and reduce the generation
of environmental wastes.
Impact:
Top management reviewed the opportunities
and measured the potential impact and savings:
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Improved material handling practices
- $27k |
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Maximize material utilization- $53k |
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Reduce waste generation - $47k |
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Improvements opportunities add up to
more than $200k/year, |
I n a second GSN meeting held in
Puerto Rico, Lehigh Press shared their success with the
participants from local industries and governmental
agencies. Furthermore, the company was also invited to make
a presentation to the MEP/NIST Director’s Meeting in
Maryland.
Quote:
"Thanks to this initiative, we were
able to participate in the QUEST competition sponsored by
the PR Manufacturing Association, where we were awarded the
First Prize for the local industry sector"
- Luis Herrera, Plant Manager
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