Solid Surfaces, Inc.
Rochester, New York

THE OVERVIEW
For 22 years, Mitch Makowski, Mark Makowski, and their teams from Solid Surfaces, Inc. have been fabricating residential and commercial countertops for customers in upstate New York. Located in Rochester, the company currently maintains more than 30,000 square feet of manufacturing space, employs 75 people, and has project gross sales of more than $9 million annually. With Mitch managing solid surface products and Mark focusing on hard surface and stone products, the company sustains a competitive advantage by always being on the cutting edge of technology. The company serves more than 40 home centers and 100 kitchen dealers within a three-hour radius of the manufacturing facility.

THE CHALLENGE
Introduced to SCMEP and the concept of synchronous flow and throughput accounting at the DuPont Fabricators Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in October 2004, Mitch Makowski, president of Solid Surfaces, Inc. was intrigued. His company was experiencing the typical pains felt by many manufacturing entities. Lead times were too high at 4.5 weeks and customers were insisting on quicker deliveries, better customer service and lower costs. Most importantly, the business had become reactive. Makowski and his associates found themselves working longer hours for less return.
 
“I was looking for an easier way to manage the company and not be forced to look at every single aspect every day,” said Makowski. “I desired to make more money but only after I improved my quality of life.”

THE SOLUTION
To achieve lasting change, Ed Hill of SCMEP began by meeting with the company owners to determine what problems the company was facing so that the new system could be designed to achieve specific objectives.

During these initial discussions, it was decided that implementing a synchronous flow system in the solid surface shop would provide the desired consistency and predictability of performance. Solid Surface management was trained in “best practices” manufacturing methodologies using a hands-on program. From there, the team agreed that shop capacity was the critical business control point and new policies were put in place to protect it. In addition, new daily performance metrics to indicate the true status of the business and provide opportunities for proactive actions and planning replaced the existing reactive measures being used. Finally, the team initiated the concept of using a five minute daily “buffer management” meeting to review open corrective actions and discuss status of new measures to assign corrective action as needed.

“We found that we were our own worst enemy, causing our own problems and we didn’t even know it,” said Makowski. “We looked to develop policies and procedures to ensure we were using our critical resource, capacity, wisely.”
 
THE IMPACT
The new way of managing the shop gave Solid Surfaces instant results. It provided a new, reliable system to manage the business, established clear responsibilities and allowed everyone to take full ownership in the company and its success. Not only was the business more organized, the policies that were created and put in place gave the plant almost instantaneous capacity. Expectations are clear and delivery is consistent. Lead time had been reduced to less than one week and sales have grown more than 21.5% since the project began.

On top of the tangible benefits realized by the project, the intangible benefits were far greater. The biggest change was in the stress levels of all associates. With the new policies and the consistent buffer management meetings, the plant is able to do more with much less tension and pressure.

“The biggest change is in the amount of sleep I get,” laughs Mitch Makowski. “I am much more relaxed in the business today because I know that people are doing their jobs and making the right decisions based on reliable data. This alone is worth gold!”

With significant success realized in information flow, the next focus is on improving efficiency in the shop itself. The goal is to further increase the velocity in the fabrication process, thus further reducing lead time and cost without sacrificing quality.

“We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do,” says Mitch, “But the fun will be in establishing a new order that will make our jobs even easier and our customers happier.