New SIPLACE factory based on lean production principles: Production time for placement machines cut by more than half

The SIPLACE Team has reached another milestone in its restructuring program by successfully starting up its new factory in Munich. By taking this step, the industry’s technology leader centralizes the production of its state-of-the-art SIPLACE placement machines immediately adjacent to its development departments. The new factory was designed in accordance with the latest lean production principles. Despite its increased output and significantly more flexible production capacity, the production area takes up less than 20 percent of the previous floor space. At the same time, the lead time from the start of the production to shipping a finished machine could be reduced by more than 60 percent to only ten days.

Just-in-time and Kanban production, flow production, pull-principle, lot size 1 in all process steps (one-piece flow), separate production teams – the new SIPLACE factory in Munich follows the latest lean production principles in terms of structure and processes. Warehouses and intermediate storage facilities for semi-finished goods, as well as pre-delivered goods were almost completely eliminated from the production. As a result, the total floor space could be reduced from 58,000 square meters to less than 11,000 square meters despite significant improvements in production capacity and flexibility. It takes only 10.8 days from the start of production until the tested machine is shipped. In 2008, it took 28 days, and in 2007 even 57 days.

Since the new "breathing" factory is designed for extreme order fluctuations, it can respond almost instantly to special customer requests and new orders.

The new factory replaced not only the old production facility in Munich, but also the former plant in Bruchsal. The Singapore location, on the other hand, will continue to produce the SIPLACE D-Series and provide assembly and service resources for the Asian market.

The new factory is fully aligned with the SIPLACE team’s new strategic direction, which focuses more than ever before on the requirements of contract electronics manufacturers. It also features lower production costs and more direct channels to the development departments. After the restructuring, requests for custom-configured placement machines can be handled with a great deal of flexibility to ensure speedy deliveries.

"In only four months – which may be a record – our people disassembled the old production facility and built the new factory with a completely new design and completely new processes. That is quite outstanding. The new factory meets the latest developments in the fields of supply chain management, lean production and value added management. Now we set the global benchmark in speed, flexibility and quality not only with our placement solutions themselves, but with their production, too," says Jörg Cwojdzinski, head of Global SCM.

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