Unlock Your Potential with Manex, Northern California’s Premiere Lean Manufacturing Consulting Firm
Manex has helped hundreds of clients reduce waste and maximize customer value by implementing lean for manufacturing strategies.
Lean Manufacturing Consulting Services
Is your business struggling with quality concerns? Is the cost of storing excess inventory eating into your profit margin?
If so, you’re not alone. These are common challenges for any manufacturer – but you don’t have to solve them on your own.
Since 1995, Manex has worked to provide exceptional lean manufacturing consulting services to manufacturers throughout Northern California.
Why Lean for Manufacturing?
Lean for manufacturing is a tried and true method for optimizing a manufacturer’s operations and eliminating waste.
With Manex as your lean manufacturing consultant, your organization can implement essential lean principles that will optimize your operations, increase efficiency, and empower your workforce.
Adopting lean manufacturing principles will help your organization in several key ways. Click below:
Beyond simply removing waste and cutting costs, our lean manufacturing experts focus on adding as much value for the customer as possible at each stage of the production process. This means analyzing each step and asking “How does this add value to the customer?” Focusing on delivering value to the customer is a competitive advantage that will increase the likelihood that customers choose your products over the competition.
Lean manufacturing is a concept rooted in the Japanese philosophy of kaizen, meaning continuous improvement. Continuous improvement works by making small, incremental changes over time to streamline an operation. These small changes add up to significant gains in the long run. Embracing a culture of continuous improvement eliminates complacency and keeps your organization constantly striving for excellence.
A core tenet of lean manufacturing is respect for people. This isn’t just a buzzword or slogan – it’s a fundamental principle that means recognizing the value and contribution of each team member. Lean empowers employees to become problem solvers, and identify and answer the challenges they face on a daily basis.
The Core Concepts of Lean Manufacturing
Reducing waste is the primary goal of lean manufacturing. Process improvement starts by identifying what the Japanese call the eight mudas, or wastes. In manufacturing, these wastes are:
- 1Overproduction – When you produce more than needed, you create excess inventory.
- 2Waiting – Delays or bottlenecks in one area of your production line cause delays in others.
- 3Transportation – Any movement of ingredients, materials, or products that is not necessary is wasteful.
- 4Inventory – Holding excess raw materials, finished goods, or anything else not actively being used results in waste.
- 5Motion – People and equipment should not be moved unless absolutely necessary.
- 6Defects – Faulty products or damaged goods are a common source of waste.
- 7Overprocessing – Steps that are redundant or simply unnecessary create waste.
- 8Non-utilization of Talents – The failure to properly utilize the skills, talent, and knowledge of employees is considered wasteful.
Manex’s lean manufacturing services focus on streamlining these eight areas to increase efficiency and reduce waste.
Beyond simply identifying these many forms of waste, lean manufacturing also focuses on five key principles to deliver quality products and maximize value for customers:
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Using our proven strategies, Manex can help your organization implement these principles to achieve significant improvements in your manufacturing operations.
Why Partner with Manex as Your Lean Manufacturing Consultant?
With 30 years serving Northern California’s manufacturing industry, we understand the challenges that manufacturers face in a crowded landscape.
Manex has helped hundreds of clients overcome these challenges with a full range of consulting, training, and support services for manufacturers in industries as diverse as aerospace, biotech, construction, food and beverage, machining and more.
Founded as a 501c3 nonprofit organization and NGO Manufacturing Extension Center under NIST MEP, Manex is dedicated to growing the manufacturing industry with strategy, planning, and optimization services.
No other lean manufacturing consulting firm in Northern California can match the skill and experience that Manex brings to the table. Regardless of your industry or size, we provide fully customized solutions tailored to your needs across multiple areas.
Manex can help you:
Develop a Winning Manufacturing Strategy
Is your current approach causing you to lose ground to your competition? Our experienced lean consultants are available to help you identify and create new sources of growth for your organization. We can help with corporate strategy and business planning, market research and development, customer satisfaction and loyalty, and more.
Empower Your Workforce
Your workforce is the backbone of your operations. Take their performance to the next level with Manex’s lean manufacturing coaching and training services. We offer comprehensive solutions to upskill your workforce with modern manufacturing methods rooted in lean techniques. With a focus on creating a culture of continuous improvement, we’ll equip your team with the skills and knowledge to solve problems and streamline operations.
Optimize Your Processes for Maximum Efficiency
Inefficiencies are one of the biggest drivers of waste in manufacturing. Manex’s lean manufacturing consultants excel at identifying areas of improvement within your operations and implementing lean solutions. We help our clients optimize their entire slate of operations, including supply chain management, logistics and distribution, inventory optimization, and plant layout and expansion.
Achieve Measurable Results That Exceed Performance Goals
Manex has developed proven performance management techniques and best practices that enhance your organization’s performance in all areas. We can conduct internal and external benchmarking, create key performance indicators, and implement other performance solutions designed to help you make strategic decisions.
Lean Manufacturing in Action
As Northern California’s premiere lean consulting firm, Manex has helped hundreds of clients streamline their operations and increase efficiency through lean training and implementation.
Some of our past client successes include:
Client Business Need: A leader in specialty medical devices, Mizuho-OSI needed a new approach to their manufacturing techniques to meet the demand for their highly engineered surgical tables. They needed to reduce cost, while increasing quality and delivery objectives for their Trios® Surgical Table product line.
Solution: Manex’s lean manufacturing consultants implemented a value stream mapping process to identify areas for improvement, and conducted several Kaizen focused activities.
Results included:
- New production floor layout
- New material delivery and staging system that reduced delays and non-value added costs to the manufacturing process
- Dramatically reduced lead time from 3.5 weeks to 9 hours (93% improvement)
- Reduced WIP from $940k to $260k (73% improvement)
- Reduced direct labor content from 38.8 hours to 32.7 hours
- Increased Trios® Top productivity for a 10.3% improvement
- Increased Trios® Base Productivity for 49% improvement
Learn more about Manex’s role helping Mizuho-OSI here.
Solution: Immediate results of the small business project included:
- Reduced costs by $200,000
- Generated new sales of $300,000
- Improved customer satisfaction
- Invested $90,000 in tooling
- Hired two new employees
- Retained four employees who were trained
“Greatly benefited our company and opened our eyes to implement solutions. I would use Manex again and I recommend them to others.” – Client
Client Business Need: The clients sought improvements to become more efficient, reduce waste, and reduce lead time.
Results Delivered: Several Kaizen events were conducted over a period 18 months. Results included improved engineering and transformational change. Immediate results included:
- Reduced costs by $400,000
- Generated $480,000 in new sales
- Retained $650,000 in sales
- Invested $155,000 in equipment and plant
- Hired three new employees
- Retained 20 employees
Client recommends Manex to others and would use Manex again.
Client Business Need: The client needed to streamline operations and take out process complexity. Manex provided a value stream simulation model.
Results Delivered: Immediate results included:
- Reduced costs by $60,000
- Generated $50,000 in sales
- Retained $100,000 in sales
- Invested $50,00 in equipment and software
- Hired one new employee
- Retained three key employees
Client is a repeat client, and highly recommends Manex for the quality of its work and for our ability to find program cost offsets such as the SBTAP grant and ETP training funds.
Client Business Need: The client initially requested an operations assessment, which led to a growth infrastructure plan, Kaizens, sales team assessment, and an updated pricing model.
Results Delivered: Immediate results included:
- Generated $3,000,000 in new sales
- Retained $1,000,000 in sales
- Retention of key employees
The client highly recommends Manex and would use Manex services again.