The Challenge
The company’s high-end motorboats are assembled by over 400 workers through a single-piece flow assembly line with 36 stations that produce over a dozen customized boats a day, for customers all around the world. In addition to the main assembly line, there are other departments that assemble the components of the boat. One of those departments is the upholstery department. With 90 operators, they make 500 to 600 customized cushioned parts every day, such as comfortable boat seats and rests.
The plant manager in charge of the upholstery operation lacked real-time visibility on the parts as they went from raw material to finished goods through the different stations on his assembly line. Prior to Tulip, the process improvement team was performing time studies, but given the sheer number of parts and operators involved, it was impossible to efficiently do this manually.
“The manual collection of information really wasn’t providing enough data for us to make data-driven decisions.”
Process Improvement Engineer
The Results
Increased production visibility
To solve this challenge, a Senior Process Engineer identified Tulip as the solution. On their own, they built no-code operations apps that enable the upholstery operation to track which operator worked on which part and for how long. The apps guide operators through a process with a barcode scanner to record start and stop, and automatically determine average cycle times, allowing management to keep track of both aggregate and individual performance, all in real-time.
“On my own, I was able to create apps that really drive process improvements.' The Senior Process Engineering explained, "These apps helped increase efficiencies without needing a support team of IT. It can be done intuitively through the software itself.”
Actionable insights for real-time targeted feedback
After implementing Tulip, the team was able to gain actionable insights into their operations. In a matter of days, they were able to start conducting real-time granular time studies. With this information, operations management can now provide real-time targeted feedback and coaching to operators to make them even more successful.
Start transforming your operations.
With Tulip, companies can digitally transform their operations and gain real-time visibility of their production in days. Speak with one of our digital advisors today to learn more!