Aerospace & Defense Case Study
Rocker Industries
Rocker Industries employs approximately 67 people at its 23,000 square foot Harbor City, CA, facility. They design and manufacture solenoids and other
precision electromechanical devices, primarily for the Aerospace and Defense industries. The company has been in business for 50 years and has annual sales
of $9.0 Million.
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“We improved labor productivity by 25% after
CMTC’s customized training & consulting
program.”
Mr. John Perry
VP/General Manager
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Issue/Needs
While Rocker Industries has enjoyed a stable position in the marketplace
and operates profitably, the company realized that in order to maintain
and build upon its competitive advantage, it must continue to look for
ways to improve efficiencies. Rocker Industries had begun to implement
the principles of Lean Manufacturing such as Kanban, Cellular
Manufacturing and Visual Factory. Management saw the need to build
on this initiative and apply additional Lean Manufacturing techniques
and tools that could further improve operations.
Implementation Highlights
Rocker Industries engaged CMTC in April 2004 to start on a series of
workshops that included a 5S Workshop for their management and
manufacturing team and a series of Lean workshops to identify and
eliminate inefficiencies. The training was followed by the implementation
of a pilot project in an assembly production area. The pilot project
immediately demonstrated its effectiveness leading to the deployment of
Lean techniques in the entire assembly manufacturing area. Rocker
Industries has fully embraced the Lean Manufacturing philosophies and
the building blocks of the Lean Enterprise Services provided by CMTC.
The entire project lasted 12 months.
Improvement Description
Rocker Industries has undergone a measurable culture change.
Supervision and staff recognize the need for 5S, conducting regular
audits, applying continuous improvement actions and creating policies to
sustain the effort. After implementing Lean techniques learned in the
training workshops, Rocker saw improved labor productivity as demonstrated
by the reduction in time spent on non-productive activities. They
organized and cleaned up the workplace, achieved improved space utilization
and reduced their lead-times significantly. Along with the reduction in
lead-times came reduced labor costs per unit produced. Other areas of the
plant witnessed the positive impact on employee morale and productivity
and on their own initiative, embraced the concept by implementing 5S
and other Lean techniques.
Financial and Investment Impact
Implementing Lean techniques proved very effective for Rocker
Industries. They improved labor productivity by 25%, space utilization
by 30% and reduced manufacturing lead-time by 15%.
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