When a Professional Business Advisor (PBA) is a Manufacturer's Best Friend
By Chuck Spangler

Once upon a time many years ago, Boozer Lumber Company decided to design wood roof trusses for the home building industry and opened South Carolina's first roof truss plant in Columbia. Being first is great, but many years down the road Boozer ran into a problem. Poor throughput and inefficient setup procedures on the shop floor, and difficulty finding and training skilled employees dogged the facility. It took employees longer than the industry standard time to build a roof truss.

"With two shifts working 54 employees, 20 hours a day, six days a week on six production lines, we had maxed out our ability to produce without going to a 24-hour day, seven-day week," says Bob Jones, CEO of Boozer Lumber. "And developing a skilled labor force was a problem because of the low pay scale, high turnover rate, and lengthy one-year training."

Enter SCMEP, whose Professional Business Advisor (PBA) took an enterprise-wide look at the company to determine how to transform and grow the business. Through performing time studies, introducing laser technology used in the aerospace industry, and building a prototype fabrication system to benchmark the setup and build times of trusses, Boozer Lumber built a world-class facility and expanded production lines and doubled capacity. This facility is one of the largest of its kind in the United States and one of the most efficient in the world. When compared to the industry standard time, Boozer's team now produces at 295% efficiency using the prototype equipment, a reported impact of $11.2 million.

The PBA looks at every part of business activity, and SCMEP is now assisting Boozer Lumber in managing the information flow in the facility, dubbed its "digital nervous system." The results? Improved customer demand fulfillment. Instead of a 3-4
week lead time for delivering trusses and wall panels, Boozer Lumber has reduced the lead time to 4-5 days of work-in-process and finished goods inventory to 1-2 days.

What is a PBA?

A PBA is an individual certified via the National Institute of Standards & Technologies' (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) organization who leads a portfolio of enterprise-wide business advisory services. A PBA is dedicated to supporting, growing, and expanding their clients' companies.

Why hire a PBA?

Manufacturing has changed dramatically in the last decade. Beginning with a slow change from a manufacturing-based economy to a services focus, manufacturing now forces small suppliers to find ways to reduce costs and prices while customizing output. The intention of a PBA is to make your organization customer-driven and teach you how to run the facility in a lean manner.

First, the CEO must be committed to transforming the company into a high-performance enterprise. PBAs - who are certified to help and are on-staff at SCMEP - will coach executive management on transforming the company, help with customer-focused strategic planning and vision-setting, create a multi-year view of the transformation process, and assemble the necessary resources to get the job done.

All of SCMEP's manufacturing specialists have received special training and been certified as PBAs. They can help you answer major questions, such as:

* Where do you want to be in 10, 15, or 20 years?
* How will you get started and stay on track?
* What are the limiting factors in your facility that are holding you back from generating more revenue?

The first step in the strategic approach to improve the entire manufacturing facility is a Competitiveness Review' (CR), an assessment tool developed by SCMEP and now in use by MEP Centers across the nation. A CR is an overall, comprehensive look at all processes in a manufacturing operation, including the shop floor and administrative office functions. It provides an on-site, systematic evaluation of a manufacturer's operations - measuring performance against globally competitive criteria. It helps a PBA gain a better understanding of a business and helps him pinpoint what, if any, improvements and/or services are needed to grow the business. SCMEP then can provide the appropriate service from its toolbox. The best thing about a PBA is that he or she will work with you in your facility - not from behind a desk in some corporate office.

To inquire about a PBA in your area, contact Chuck Spangler of SCMEP at cspangler@scmep.org or (864) 288-5687.