BIC Guides Edwards Lifesciences towards World Class Manufacturing!!!!
Edwards Lifesciences approached BIC in early 2008 to assist in the development of a World Class Manufacturing Center for their Transcatheter Delivery Systems in Irvine, CA.
Edwards Lifesciences’ Four Transcatheter production lines were designed under a pilot build scenario, where the design for manufacturability was not heavily considered. The lines performed a batch build manufacturing process, where production equipment is often shared and limited in daily output. Understanding this, Edwards set a course to update, automate and increase the output and reliability of the equipment in the manufacturing process. A goal was established to meet a very high rate of demand, with some lines increasing capacity 4-5 times their current production volume. A second important goal was to design ‘unique’ but flexible lines to produce products independently.
Within the first 3 months BIC identified and helped to implement the following improvements on one of the main production lines:
- Reduced Cycle time from 4 weeks to under 1 week
- Reduced monthly labor requirement for product lines from 450 hours to 150 hours
- Developed clear, concise and operator friendly Manufacturing SOPs
- Identified and reduced waste and travel time for Operators and Material
- Developed and implemented Visual Factory that is easy to supervise and is line-clearance friendly
Edwards Lifesciences has since extended BIC’s contract to create a World Class operation for the remaining product lines to include:
- Procurement / outsource of technologies to strategic partners with the intent to minimize manufacturing mistake exposure and to yield cost savings
- Coaching a team of engineers on ‘Best Manufacturing Practices’ and selection of capital equipment purchases
- Design and development of operator friendly catheter fixtures for drilling, cutting and skiving
- Identifying improvements that can be made through Lean Manufacturing – either in design for manufacturing or production based Lean methodology
Boston Industrial Consulting, Inc. continues to achieve success in assisting companies streamline their operation and increase their profit margin. Edwards Lifesciences joins an elite list of BIC Medial Device Manufacturers including Boston Scientific Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Astra Tech, Inc. and CYTYC Corporation.
posted by BIC @ 10:35 AM
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