Value Analysis and Value Engineering
Value Analysis (VA) is concerned with existing products while Value Engineering (VE) is concerned with new products. At Diemasters, our team of experts evaluate and analyze each new product program with a focus on reducing costs and optimizing product efficiency and we continuously do the same for existing products.
Our Execution Strategy
The Theory of Constraints
Increasing throughput velocity without increasing inventory or operating costs.
At Diemasters, we work both hard and smart. We give you the opportunity to manufacture smarter because everything we do is handled from a Theory of Constraints1 perspective.
The Theory of Constraints is a management philosophy that strives for continuous improvement by eliminating the bottlenecks, or constraints, in a process. Whether it’s physical, policy, or external, there is a slowest point in even the most efficient process.
By identifying that constraint and following the Five Focusing Steps, we continually improve our throughput velocity without having to increase inventory or operating costs.
1Goldratt, Dr. Eliyahu M. The Goal. 1984.
The Five Focusing Steps
Every day we ask, “Is there a smarter way to do this?” And every day we find answers.
By working smarter, costs stay constant, throughput velocity increases, and your piece part cost goes down.
Product Flow System
Increasing throughput velocity rarely means speeding up the presses. If you’re stamping 1000 parts a minute, but those parts sit on the stamping room floor for a day, your throughput is still a full day.
We’ve designed a proprietary Product Flow System that ensures everything is moving through the plant as efficiently as possible. In line with the Theory of Constraints, we figure out where a product has the most queue time and find a way to get it to its next operation quicker.
This is a pull system instead of a push system – products always have somewhere to be, and we get them there right away. By keeping our plant organized with this system, we’ve been able to eliminate 20% of plant workers’ time that was formerly wasted searching for products.
Since the Product Flow System is reflected throughout our entire plant, you’ll get more of your product faster.
Automation
Manufacturers all pay nearly the same rates for raw materials (though ours tend to be slightly lower due to our buying power as a financially stable company). Therefore, in order to provide a better piece part price, a manufacturer must lower overhead.
The best way to lower our overhead and your costs is often to introduce automation into the process. This pulls out labor and speeds up throughput velocity, getting your product out the door faster, for a lower landed cost.
We approach automation in a smarter way by determining exactly what you need, how it fits in your budget, how it will affect your ROI, and how cost-effectively we can build it in-house. We’ve designed and built several pieces of automation in our plant that would’ve cost five times as much to buy. They may not look as pretty, but your invoices will be absolutely beautiful.
Tooling Lifecycle Management
We always know exactly how sharp our tools are, when they need to be sharpened, and when they need to be replaced. Using a state-of-the-art computerized tool maintenance system, we ensure that your tool stays as sharp on its millionth stroke as it was on its first.
Our Tooling Lifecycle Management system not only satisfies customers who want every part manufactured to the correct specifications, but also our TS certification requirements. Furthermore, it’s in line with the Theory of Constraints Management, because a dull tool should never be the bottleneck in our plant.
Enhanced Quoting Process
We developed a proprietary quoting process that uses a modified Activity-Based Costing (ABC) model integrated into Theory of Constraints (TOC) methodology so you get more accurate, and often more affordable, pricing.
Activity-Based Costing seeks to work direct and indirect costs into pricing models based on how that specific activity uses direct/assignable or overhead costs. This means that instead of arbitrarily distributing indirect costs evenly across all of our quotes, we examine the type of activity generated and its true cost.
Integrating this into Theory of Constraints management also provides for a formal examination of the impact of investments and operational changes on throughput velocity, allowing us to price accordingly. Truly understanding cost, critical constraint resources (CCR) and throughput velocity is at the heart of our quotation and execution strategy.
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“Today through use of innovative lean manufacturing techniques, expansive engineered processes and a strict adherence to the highest quality and safety standards, our stamping plant has successfully produced recent multi-year PPM ratings of less than one. Our stamping philosophies have also earned us high supplier ratings with both automotive and medical customers and continuous positive auditing scores from yearly ISO 9001:2015, ISO 13485:2016, ISO 14001:2015 audits and IATF 16949:2016.”
— Dieter Weissenrieder, CEO and Founder