FastCap factory tour

[Ole Anderson]

Just today I responded to threads twice regarding FastCap products. That brought me to their website which enticed me to take the video tour of their facility in Bellingham WA. It must be a left coast thing, but these folks really think outside of the box. Very interesting, it is definitely worth your while to take 13 minutes to view. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. They seem to specialize in short production runs of many innovative products. There is a "FastCap Factory Tour" click box on the left side of their home page. Click on the Products tab too to see the the array of products they put out. I assumed they were just a facility that processed orders from Chinese made goods, not so. Pleasantly surprised. I have no affiliation with these folks, except that I have a couple of their products, two tape measures and a flush cutter.

http://www.fastcap.com/

[Robert Payne]

Very innovative approach to just in time manufacturing -- excellent video.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Thanks for sharing. Incredibly efficient and clean place to work. They all must wear quality shoes. I didn't see any rubber mats for them to stand on in their work areas.

[Phil Thien]

Lean is like having a picky condo association for employee's cubicle and desk.

[Chris Padilla]

Pretty cool! At least you can sit when mother nature calls. ;)

Nice slider...couldn't tell what kind they had. I do love their efficient use of space.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I looked around more of the site during a meal break. Their video section has some great "lean" videos with all sorts of time-saving ideas. It definitely triggered some ideas on how things can be improved around the house, barn and shop to make everyday chores & projects easier. Thanks again for sharing the link!

[Justin Ludwig]

A company that uses lean and kaizen has my vote. I get stressed out when I see a mess. Cool find, Ole. I own a few Fast Cap items as well.

[David Weaver]

I may be the only person who says this, but I wouldn't want to work there. Maybe it's a little less rah rah when the boss isn't around, but the processes as they're described would be better suited to a robot mentality than a person.

I worked at a cabinet factory that went JIT back in the 1990s in the middle of the housing boom, and it didn't cause much in terms of problems. We did it because people were fascinated with japanese companies at the time. There were people working there from 18 to 78 years old and we had a quick meeting every morning to announce the stuff for the day and then everyone did stretches (haha) because the japanese were doing it at the time. Those were a waste of time for the kind of work we were doing on an assembly line, but they wanted to do everything exactly the same way as toyota and others were doing it.

The only problem with it was that if you had a cabinet that had a face frame problem or something, and no more of that stain, you had no face frames in reserve, or doors, and if the truck with that cabinet was leaving that day, you had to wait for another face frame to come through finish over the next couple of days and then send that cabinet UPS to the distributor.

I don't own any fast cap stuff, but i don't see any of it that would make a difference in a hand tooler's shop.

[David Weaver]

Realizing that my comment above could come across as "too rah rah" or "too robotic compared to what"?

Lie Nielsen would be one where I saw the factory tour and thought that it looked like a place with a bit more humanity and a bit less cog in the wheel kind of mentality.

But presuming that they're assembling (fast cap) stuff in the united states vs. just sourcing from China, I'd still say good for them.

[Shawn Pixley]

The videos were pretty interesting. I don't have any Fastcap products. If I were a business owner producing items, this would be how I approach it. For my hobby work, I prefer to savor the experience. I do like some of the techiques for organization. Having everything on wheels is great for flexibility or customization of a particular workflow. I supect many of us employ some limited dimension of lean thinking (if nothing else, where and how tools are stored).

I haven't worked in a production environment for years as I am on the knowledge work end of things for the last 20 years or so. For a production shop though, I like what they have done. Personally, I like the standing height format. My office is a standing height and I love it. Actually, I love the standing format period. I would prefer that I had no walls to separate me from my team. My team is responsible for portfolio and workplace design. Were are constantly exploring new environments for work.

Our company utilizes Lean and OE techniques (one of which is Kaizen) in our production processes as well as some transactional processes. Unfortunately, when one tries to apply this thinking to some types of transactional work or all knowledge work, it becomes the wrong tool for the wrong job. I have had numerous senceless discussions with a colleague who tried to Kaizen a transactional process of lease negotiations. I knew we were never going to get any where when he or she tried to ask what the right length of time was needed for lease negotiations. As the negotiations involve another beyond your control it became a senseless discussion. Another party who is recalcitrant, blows the timing out of the water.

As to knowledge work, it was very evident that they had their mind made up and and no data to the contrary was going to pursuade them from their viewpoint. They would state, "everything in the world is a process that can be streamlined." When I asked them to describe the process of creating the theory of relativity (as opposed to proving it). They stammered and feel bad. I can create a lean process to paint a wall. I can create a process for painting a copy of the Mona Lisa. But I cannot create a process for creating the next "Mona Lisa like piece of art."

i see this a the typical gulf of understand between R&D and production organizations. The mindset is completely different. Off of soapbox now.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Yeah, well............

The reason it works so well at this operation is the all-consuming focus on the part of the top guy. You have to have long-term, 100% commitment at the very top. At one point he made the comment about a simple face-palm improvement "We have been doing this 12 years, and we never thought of that before".

It takes time and dedication. Most organizations that go into this fail, because the don't understand what it really means, are not willing or able to make the organizational/cultural changes necessary to succeed, and don't understand what it really is going to take to succeed. And - most important of all - they do not have a good understanding of how to go about making the changes in a way that will let them succeed.

David's observation on "...if you had a cabinet that had a face frame problem..." is a perfect example. He makes an excellent point. The problem, however, was not with the concept of JIT or Lean, the problem is that company dod a lousy job of analyzing, planning, and implementing. And, from his first 2 paragraphs, they clearly did not take the correct approach toward changing an age-old culture. David - a classic example of mgmt failure, which poisoned the well for most of eternity.

Some bits and pieces are always applicable to any particular operation. For one example - the hand tooler's shop - tell me if the tools all have an exact home, and are always in that home? If not, how much time is spent digging through the tools on the bench to find that frog adjustment screwdriver? I alsays know exactly where mine is - and the punch-line is that it is not used very frequently, so I have to know where to find it when I eventually need it. At the same time, I use my 3/8" bench chisel frequently, so I have to know​ where it is.

Shawn - the person that wanted a standard time for lease negotiations did not understand that process, and did not understand what Lean/JIT is supposed to do. Your points about the theory of relativity and the Mona Lisa are correct, of course. But I would maintain that there are improvements to be made, but not in the fashion, and not in the scope, of what you are describing. Rather, the approach I would take is this: What are the tasks assigned to the creative talent? Which of those do not involve creativity? How can those tasks be re-engineered to eliminate time wasted by the talent, so they can spend more of their time where we need them? And yes - it gets down to stuff as trivial as where is copier located, where is the copy paper located, etc., etc. But if you were to take a few days, and stand back and objectively analyze where time is spent, I can pretty much assure you you would be surprised. Or - if we think about it, can we cut in half the time it takes to clean the paintbrushes at the end of each day, so he talent can spend more time painting the Sistine Chapel?

So guys - I agree with your observations on why it has not worked in your situations. However,it ain't the system or concept that is flawed in your examples, it is the knuckleheads driving it.

I have been involved in many, many lean/JIT projects. On the shop floor. In R&D. In the Accts Payable department. You name it - I've been there. When I had the buy-in from top-level mgmt, we succeeded. When the top-level mgmt viewed it as just another corporate edict requiring just enough lip service to make them go away, it failed - in fact - I would walk away from participating in those.

[Phil Thien]

I'm not working anyplace where the only time I can sit down is lunch and the restroom. My knees are okay now but I'm not ruining them because the guy at the top is OC. Give those people ergonomic stools for God's sake. Especially the ones that stand at the pallet racking all day long.

And the foam is ridiculous. The tools should be on retractable lanyards. They're wasting sooooo much time on the foam. Foam is fine for longer-term storage, not for production.

[David Weaver]

David's observation on "...if you had a cabinet that had a face frame problem..." is a perfect example. He makes an excellent point. The problem, however, was not with the concept of JIT or Lean, the problem is that company dod a lousy job of analyzing, planning, and implementing. And, from his first 2 paragraphs, they clearly did not take the correct approach toward changing an age-old culture. David - a classic example of mgmt failure, which poisoned the well for most of eternity.


I wouldn't say it failed. I'm sure it saved money, and it was generally made possible in the environment due to computers and a scan system that could put every single production item in order at every step of the way. If you were running the "clamp" in assembly, your cabinet sides and backs were stacked in order due to the computerized tickets. Same with the face frames.

Doors came on carts in order of production (though they did have door inventory where they were pulled from, it's too hard to do JIT with every part, because doors often don't quite match face frames and you need to try another door).

At any rate, it worked. The cabinets that got stuck waiting for parts fit between the assembly lines without issue, and I don't know what percent didn't leave on their trucks, but it was a fraction of a percent. Maybe one in 250 or one in 500.

We made 3350 cabinets a week while I was there. We had about $750 a week of waste (broken panels, doors that had bad color and got WB sanded too many times to use), and when it would get to $1000, it would cause a big ruckus. Everyone there got paid peanuts (including most of the office people), and when the credit crisis hit in 2008, the factory was closed. that was 10 years after I last worked there, though.

Anyway, the JIT worked fine there, it just wouldn't have been a very nice place to work in the long term for both physical reasons and because being in production in a place that is lean everything is pretty miserable.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I wouldn't say it failed...........

Anyway, the JIT worked fine there, it just wouldn't have been a very nice place to work in the long term for both physical reasons and because being in production in a place that is lean everything is pretty miserable.

With that as the final evaluation, I would say it did fail. When done right, the results are exactly the opposite. Employee well-being, commitment, and job satisfaction are the prime drivers of "the big picture". I have seen the situation you describe on more than one occasion. If everything is miserable, then they were driving a different agenda.

You and I don't have an argument here. You and I have had different experiences, coming from different angles.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I'm not working anyplace where the only time I can sit down is lunch and the restroom. My knees are okay now but I'm not ruining them because the guy at the top is OC. Give those people ergonomic stools for God's sake. Especially the ones that stand at the pallet racking all day long.

And the foam is ridiculous. The tools should be on retractable lanyards. They're wasting sooooo much time on the foam. Foam is fine for longer-term storage, not for production.

Yeah - the "everyone stands" schtick is at the edge, I'd agree. But - I strongly recommend it for "meetings". I hate meetings. HATE. MEETINGS. If the players have to stand up, they get to the point quickly, and their group members will cut off the story about the big bass on Saturday.

Also - they wouldn't hire you [or me] in the first place, because job requirements include the ability to stand on your feet for the entire workday. We would wash out in the application phase.

On the lanyards - yep, no doubt, on a traditional production line dedicated on one product, or a family of very similar products. You will recall that their situation was precisely the opposite. He did not get into it in detail - I was hoping for more on that bit of their business. But - they were a small-quantity producer of multiple items - trying to get down to the holy grail of one-piece-flow. When you have that situation, as opposed to the dedicated line, you need to be able to access many tools, as needed for the product being produced that minute, and switch tool sets quickly for the next product.

Your approach is exactly on-target given the correct circumstances. Turns out, that is not their business model, so a different solution is needed.

The foam tool boards are applicable in a traditional production line - for setups. You have to move the tools with you to the machine, and there are a lot of tools that may be needed, but won't always be needed, depending on the details of the from-to changes.

[Phil Thien]

Yeah - the "everyone stands" schtick is at the edge, I'd agree. But - I strongly recommend it for "meetings". I hate meetings. HATE. MEETINGS. If the players have to stand up, they get to the point quickly, and their group members will cut off the story about the big bass on Saturday.

Not a big fan of meetings either but some of the best planning/solutions I've seen have been the result of long meetings. I'm not saying short meetings aren't helpful. But you can't just insist all meetings are brief and still get the same result. That isn't the real world, it is just a gimmick.


Also - they wouldn't hire you [or me] in the first place, because job requirements include the ability to stand on your feet for the entire workday. We would wash out in the application phase.

The standing thing is just dumb, I would never apply to begin with. And I often stand all day long, even eating lunch standing, because my job demands it quite often.

But when it comes right down to it, if someone can sit on a stool and be just as efficient and more comfortable, they should sit.


On the lanyards - yep, no doubt, on a traditional production line dedicated on one product, or a family of very similar products. You will recall that their situation was precisely the opposite. He did not get into it in detail - I was hoping for more on that bit of their business. But - they were a small-quantity producer of multiple items - trying to get down to the holy grail of one-piece-flow. When you have that situation, as opposed to the dedicated line, you need to be able to access many tools, as needed for the product being produced that minute, and switch tool sets quickly for the next product.

Lanyards is still the way to go, you just change-out the tools, they just clip on and off. They are wasting soooo much time on the foam. I realize he sells the foam and wants to use what he sells. My suggestion: Sell lanyards.


Your approach is exactly on-target given the correct circumstances. Turns out, that is not their business model, so a different solution is needed.

The foam tool boards are applicable in a traditional production line - for setups. You have to move the tools with you to the machine, and there are a lot of tools that may be needed, but won't always be needed, depending on the details of the from-to changes.

Yeah no problem for setups but not for any sort of production. If you need to touch a tool each cycle, get it out of the foam.

[David Weaver]

If everything is miserable, then they were driving a different agenda.

Profit, I'd assume. If I were the owners, I'd have expected the same. I thought what might've been a little more interesting would be if the assembly folks switched jobs every two hours (every two hours there was a break of some type).

There were 13 of us on a line assembling vanities, 9 hour days and we assembled 70-75 an hour on that line (that's the line I worked on the most). I moved around some, because I was there each summer as a floater, but it wasn't out of the question for me to be in a specific department for a couple of weeks and then do the same job every day. That could've been something like putting guides in 640 or 650 cabinets a day, a job anyone on the line could've learned to do at speed in a couple of days.

Same with packing the cabinets, same with putting the doors on them on the assembly line. Some of the folks there liked doing the same thing every single day, but you put the guides in 70-75 cabinets an hour, and assemble them along with that, and it's pretty fast paced and very dull at the same time.

There was a sub assembly area for drawers. They were put together with hot melt and staples IIRC, and those folks rotated but they were the only ones I could think of. Otherwise, in a situation like that place, I think it's difficult to make it interesting. that part of the factory could not have been sped up without automation. You were in a rhythm all day, and with very little movement. The line went a certain speed and you kept up with it because nobody was happy when it stopped.

[Brian Elfert]

But presuming that they're assembling (fast cap) stuff in the united states vs. just sourcing from China, I'd still say good for them.

I was at Menards today and happened to see some screws by FastCap. Because of this thread I checked to see where they are made. They are made in China.

Ever notice that most stuff Made in the USA announces that fact in 40 point type right on the front with an American flag, but Made in China is usually in small type in a hard to find spot?

[Shawn Pixley]

Shawn - the person that wanted a standard time for lease negotiations did not understand that process, and did not understand what Lean/JIT is supposed to do. Your points about the theory of relativity and the Mona Lisa are correct, of course. But I would maintain that there are improvements to be made, but not in the fashion, and not in the scope, of what you are describing. Rather, the approach I would take is this: What are the tasks assigned to the creative talent? Which of those do not involve creativity? How can those tasks be re-engineered to eliminate time wasted by the talent, so they can spend more of their time where we need them? And yes - it gets down to stuff as trivial as where is copier located, where is the copy paper located, etc., etc. But if you were to take a few days, and stand back and objectively analyze where time is spent, I can pretty much assure you you would be surprised. Or - if we think about it, can we cut in half the time it takes to clean the paintbrushes at the end of each day, so he talent can spend more time painting the Sistine Chapel?

So guys - I agree with your observations on why it has not worked in your situations. However, it ain't the system or concept that is flawed in your examples, it is the knuckleheads driving it.

Kent, thanks. I can see how you might construe my post as opposition to the tenets of Operational Excellence (OE) and Lean. Actually, that is far from the truth (unfortunately not in my post). We use Lean And OE extensively in our group for repeatable processes such as data gathering, sorting & filtering, and data array for analysis. We often use reasonably large data sets (750K to 112M Data elements) in our work. It works exactly as you describe; we can use our time in analysis, interpretation and presentation. We use this the to propose our next series of actions and opportunities.

What I do mind is a dogmatic viewpoint of people who have preconceptions about the work or what is possible within a set of responsibilities. The nature of others who make pronouncements without seeking to understand first is intellectually disingenuous. We are a science based company, and they are violating one of the central tenets of science by arguing the data instead of the interpretation.

I do see the gulf between production thinking and research thinking. If we consider lab work, the the production group would measure the productivity of the lab by counting the throughput of the assays conducted. The methods would have all been developed and it is more or less rote work.

The R&D lab example might involve a scientist spending a fair amount of time thinking about how he or she might run an experiment to determine whether a particular molecule would ultimately succeed or fail (that quiet time can be misconstrued as waste). There is a strategic advantage of identifying molecules that would ultimately fail as early as possible. They also may be using very creative approaches to determine unique avenues of exploration. To R&D every experiment succeeding or failing adds to the understanding. Unfortunately, from the production side or the OE side, that failure looks like waste. Admittedly, my bias is to the R&D side of the house.

Lean thinking has a value which I certainly support. However it is not the savior to all problems. When applied blindly by people who do not seek to understand first, it adds to the waste itself. In many ways, I think you and I are in passionate agreement.

If you fancy a discussion on productivity among knowledge workers, I would love your perspective. We have been exploring proxy metrics (such as collaboration linkages) as the analog for knowledge or creative work. PM me if you are interested.

Unrelated to the central point, we are paperless. What is this thing you refer to as a "copier"?

[Kent A Bathurst]

What I do mind is a dogmatic viewpoint of people who have preconceptions about the work or what is possible within a set of responsibilities. The nature of others who make pronouncements without seeking to understand first is intellectually disingenuous.


Agreed.



Lean thinking has a value which I certainly support. However it is not the savior to all problems. When applied blindly by people who do not seek to understand first, it adds to the waste itself. In many ways, I think you and I are in passionate agreement.

We are.



What is this thing you refer to as a "copier"?

Man...I KNEW that was coming. :p :p

I left it there as a tangible example for others who may be bored to tears and are following the discussion. An then - I ran to your more amorphous example, and tried the Sistine Chapel on for size. Figgered if I could cut 5% out of Michelangelo's 50 +/- months, he would have had time to knock out an extra small statue, or summit. :D

[David Weaver]

I was at Menards today and happened to see some screws by FastCap. Because of this thread I checked to see where they are made. They are made in China.

Ever notice that most stuff Made in the USA announces that fact in 40 point type right on the front with an American flag, but Made in China is usually in small type in a hard to find spot?

i hardly know what made in the USA means, anyway. I had a plumbing problem this past week and had to order an entire set of stem and barrel assemblies and knobs for a three faucet renu system, most of the places said US made, and the only one that was in stock was silent about it. When I got it, I was disappointed to find that it is made in china at made in usa price by a company called lasco. It works OK, but not as well as the original american standard handles and internal parts did (all of the handles turn with different tension, markedly so).

I guess when I said that fast cap was manufacturing some stuff in the US, they may be, I already can't remember what I saw in that video because I was put off a little bit by the standing and other such semi religious things in it (that's my term, no religious in the sense of banned terms on here). But made in the USA doesn't seem to amount to too much, anyway, it's more like assembled.

I've worked in several manufacturers, and none of them were spotless during the work day (even if they were cleaned at the end of a shift). So if they're assembing bits and pieces from china that would make more sense.

(I did find when I opened my faucet package that a bunch of the parts were stamped taiwan, anyway).

[Mel Fulks]

Mike Angelo didn't want to finish any faster. That job of painting while lying down ,was the inspiration for Lil' Abner's job
as a "mattress tester".

[Kent A Bathurst]

i hardly know what made in the USA means, anyway.

Global economy. You hear that so often, it seems like a throw-away buzzword. But - it is accurate.

Cars.com ranks vehicles in terms of US content - considering parts and assembly.

Top of the list - F-150.
#6 - Stingray
#10 - Viper

All the others in the Top Ten are either Toyota or Honda.

So - let's assume I need a new vehicle, and a pick-up is not appropriate for my needs. I need a car-car.

And - I want Made in the USA. So - I gotta go Japanese.

Go figger. It is a global economy.

http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&subject=ami

[Bert Kemp]

I use to work in a factory, I setup metal stamping press's anything from a 5 ton to a 200 ton press. There were literally 100's of dies that went into these press's to stamp parts. These dies weighed anywhere from 75# to several tons and when a job was finished they would take out the dies and put them anywhere, on a rack behind the press, on the floor in a warehouse anywhere they felt like dropping them. Then come time to set that job up again you could spend hours walking around looking for that die, this is no BS I've search as much a 3 hours looking for dies thats almost half a shift of no production.Sure the managers would say they were going to develop a system but it never happened in 30s odd years i know of. How stupid is that. How many hours of lost time per day that place went thru is beyond imagination. This was not a small company has thousands of employees.

[Scott Shepherd]

I use to work in a factory, I setup metal stamping press's anything from a 5 ton to a 200 ton press. There were literally 100's of dies that went into these press's to stamp parts. These dies weighed anywhere from 75# to several tons and when a job was finished they would take out the dies and put them anywhere, on a rack behind the press, on the floor in a warehouse anywhere they felt like dropping them. Then come time to set that job up again you could spend hours walking around looking for that die, this is no BS I've search as much a 3 hours looking for dies thats almost half a shift of no production.Sure the managers would say they were going to develop a system but it never happened in 30s odd years i know of. How stupid is that. How many hours of lost time per day that place went thru is beyond imagination. This was not a small company has thousands of employees.

I bet you didn't have a chair to sit in all day either, did you Bert? As my days as a machinist for 25 years, I don't recall too many positions on the shop floor that has chairs either. I don't think that's as abnormal as one might think. I've never seen a mechanic that didn't stand up all day, a machinist, a grocery store clerk, etc. Lot's of people stand up all day at work.

[Bert Kemp]

I think the only chairs in the whole place were in the offices and the cafe. It was a concrete floor thru out and my bodies payed the price. I had my back done in "89" L4-L5-S1, Lifting 75 to 150 lb steel dies by hand, after that we got a cart or a fork lift, I tore my wrist apart in 02 yanking on 20lb wrench's to tie the dies down its held together with 6 SS pins now and very limited movement, I had a hip replacement in 2008 and both my knee's are gone now. All I would imagine do to all the heavy lifting and walking on concrete floors for all those years. Hey I'm sitting now with a soft rug and foam padding under my feet:D;):p

[David Weaver]

It was a concrete floor thru out and my bodies payed the price.

My point exactly. If you're walking on concrete all day (as we did at the cabinet factor), and especially if you have a steel toe requirement, it would be great to sit when you can sit. It should make no difference to the owner of a business whether people sit or stand, as long as the volume of work is the same. For a machinist, or for someone like I was running up an down an assembly line, there are no sitting jobs because there's no time that you just sit for long periods of time. But standing on a concrete floor and running around on it is hard on you and I never had shoes or boots that didn't leave my feet aching.