Staying Flexible
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By Brian Salgado   
Wednesday, 14 March 2007
smc Husky stays in U.S. to remain nimble for clients.
Husky stays in U.S. to remain nimble for clients.
The Husky Corp. has come a long way from its humble beginnings in the kitchen of an entrepreneurial couple. According to Brad Baker, executive vice president, Husky started with the invention of a fuel pump nozzle guard that Hazel Sutcliffe molded in her kitchen oven by dipping it in a liquid plastic agent. Sutcliffe’s husband, Eugene Grenville Sutcliffe, loaded the back of the family car with the products and drove around the United States until he sold them out.

Fifty years later, Husky has a 36,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Pacific, Mo., where it makes nozzles, swivels and Safe-T-Brakes for the petroleum dispensing industry. The company sells 80 percent of its products domestically through two approaches. The first is through a base of 500 distributors that market to gas stations. The second is directly to gas station owners, who ask their distributors to carry Husky products after meeting with the company.

“[We have] the ability to react and respond to what our customers’ specific needs are – whether it is an engineering change or design change,” Baker says. “We are marketing that kind of initiative. Our products work great, are much more robust than the competition, last longer and have good prices and good value.”

Baker says Husky has avoided the temptation to move its operation offshore as many of its competitors have so it can remain responsive to customer needs. “We have a real focus on made-in-the-United States, and all our manufacturing is done here, as well,” Baker adds. “We don’t have to wait six to 12 weeks for boats to come over with our products.”

When it comes to quality, Baker says Husky’s customers have two expectations for its products. “The products have to dispense gas in a way that doesn’t harm or get gas on the customer, who is actually standing there dispensing the fuel,” Baker says. “The next level is a function of longevity and how robust is the product and how long does it last. It will operate throughout the warranty period, but how much longer than the warranty period does it last?”

Quality through Lean
Since adopting lean two years ago, Baker says, Husky is in a continuous improvement mode. “There are always changes to the products happening on a daily basis,” Baker says. “We tweak from making them easier to assemble, making the process of assembly more standardized, adding an enhancement recommended by a customer to make it easier to use, or marketing to a look or feel.” Husky’s lean consultant, John Jennings of Midwest Manufacturing Strategies, advised the company to focus on its most complex problem. For Husky, this would be the nozzles, which had the most components required for assembly.

The first initiative Husky took on was to get rid of in-process inventory that was on the assembly line. During that process, Husky implemented standardized work instructions and created cells. So far, Baker has been pleased with the results.

“It has been great in reducing waste and inventory levels, as well as the amount of time it takes to get orders out the door,” he says. “It wasn’t too long ago when we had 15,000 nozzles hanging in finished goods and a 30-day lead time on orders. Now, it is four days, more typically three, from when the order is placed to when it ships.

“We reduced our finished goods inventory and our in-process inventory to buy new equipment.” With the newfound space and low-sale inventory out of the plant, Husky made capital investments in new equipment that helped the company grow its sales even more.

“To make capital investments with cash typically tied up in inventory, we didn’t have floor space to do anything new,” Baker adds. “As a result [of lean], we are able to continue to find more space as we get rid of racks of old, slow-moving inventory. We’ve been able to grow, sales have gone up, inventory has gone down, lead times have gone down and our customers are happier.” Along with improvements in sales and inventory, Baker says Husky has also made safety improvements through lean. The plant’s number of days between accidents has gone up 50 percent, and the dollar cost of an accident has been reduced by 75 percent.

“People will say, ‘Lean is not working. I’m not working as hard as I used to and not doing as much as I used to,’” Baker says. “But sales have gone up and the amount of work has gone down. There is no rework, and we don’t have other people scrambling around and working overtime to get equipment made for customers. [It is working because] the person on the floor thinks they are doing less.”
 
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