From a whole-machine build to a seven-step line

This entry describes a week-long kaizen and the nine months that followed at a critical-care medical-device manufacturer in the western United States. The operation assembled a complex bedside machine one unit at a time, a single technician building each from start to finish. The client’s name, the individuals involved, and the specific revenue figures have been altered or omitted at the client’s request.

Situation. One technician built an entire critical-care machine, start to finish — a batch of one. Running that way on maximum daily overtime, the operation topped out near 35 machines a month, with long lead times and a market everyone knew was far larger, though no one could say by how much.

Complication. The obvious plan was more people, more floor, more shifts — but the technicians were already burned out, with no time to think about improvement, and the opportunity could not be sized well enough to justify the capital. Lean had been tried here before, in-house, and had failed, which made trying it again a harder sell. The effort had gone into working the existing method harder.

Question. So the question we put was not how to build a machine faster, or where to find more assemblers. It was whether the operation was truly out of capacity — or whether the capacity was locked inside the decision that one person should build the whole machine alone.

Resolution. In a single week-long kaizen, the whole-machine build became a seven-step line — batch into flow. The line put the bottleneck in plain sight, where one bench building the whole machine had hidden it, and problem-solving landed where it bound. Training a new hire on one step rather than the entire machine took the sting out of turnover, and the build sequence that had lived in each technician’s head moved into the line itself — freeing them to solve problems rather than recall steps. Throughput passed 50 machines a month inside that first week, up from 35 on full overtime, with no new capital and no new people. Over the next nine months, five further kaizens cleared the supply-chain limits and carried the first line to four times its original rate. Its productivity by then made its own case for capital: the line was replicated — a second line, a second shift — and the copy secured the full 800% growth in sales across three years.

Throughput: 35 machines a month on full overtime → past 50 within the first week → four times the original rate on the first line.
First-week gain: Achieved with no added capital and no added labor.
Sales: Grew 800% over three years — secured by replicating the proven first line (a second line and a second shift).
Sustaining: The batch build became the standard seven-step line; five follow-on kaizens over nine months cleared the supply-chain constraints.

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