A flock of wild geese are disturbed by the chill of the dusk settling upon them and they cry all the way while flying southward, disappearing at the waterside of Henyang. This beautiful line comes from An Introduction to Pavilion of Prince Teng whose writer is Wang Bo, one of the Four Literary Eminences in Early Tang. The place in the line refers to Hengyang. The northern goose flies to south and stops here. Located in Yancheng, an important south-central city with profound culture, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems) is one of the large-scale manufacturing enterprises of fuel injection system in China.

Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems produces and markets three major series of products including high-pressure fuel injection pump assembly for the diesel engine of various kinds of vehicle models and its accessories, aluminium casting, and export spare parts. Its leading product, fuel injection pump assembly, is mainly manufactured for supporting domestic major diesel engine plants such as Yuchai, Dongfeng Commins, and Weichai Power, with an annual production capacity of 600,000 sets; its aluminium casting is mainly produced to support companies such as Yuchai, Britain JBC, and Shanghai Hind Engine; its spare parts is mainly provided for companies such as U.S. CUMMINS, CATERPILLAR, and AMERICAMICRO.

Yuchai is the biggest client of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems. In 2012, its sales volume was RMB 611 million Yuan, of which the sales volume from supply products to Yuchai accounted for 64.5%. From January to September in 2013, this ratio climbed to 68.6%. Meanwhile, as the strategic supplier of Yuchai, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems keeps up with Yuchai, responds to the call of Yuchai. When Yuchai implementing its lean supply chain construction, it initiatively undertakes the collaborative project Reduce the Failure Rate of Oil Pump Installation to Zero, becoming one of the seven units involve in Yuchais first phase collaborative improvement of lean supply chain.

Only a powerful supply chain can bring more opportunities to the enterprises.

Lean is not strange to the members of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems. When cooperating with ASIMCO Technologies Limited, it introduced the concept of lean manufacturing, having brought a new wind to the production and management of the company. However, after several years implementation, this work ended without outcome.

Zhou Zhijin, General Manager of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems

Maybe the words of Zhou Zhijin, general manager revealed the truth. Lean is not only a part of the enterprise culture, but also an advanced management method. Its successful implementation relies on full staff involvement and comprehensive promotion in overall process, but we only carried it out in the field of production initially. If only part of the departments, workshops and employees work on this, it is possible that the lean will become a mere formality in future.

Since lean work could not be carried out before, why does Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems actively respond to the concept of forging lean supply chain proposed by Yuchai? Isnt Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems fear of repeating the same mistake?

Lean supply chain originates from lean management and it is the application of lean thinking in supply chain management. On April 2, Yuchai launched the 2013 lean project. The collaborative improvement of lean supply chain was an important constituent part of the project under the promotion of the Purchasing Department and participation of the suppliers. On April 26, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems signed an agreement on collaborative improvement of lean supply chain with Yuchai.

As the economic globalization increasingly deepens and the competition among enterprises becomes more and more fierce, it is not a good time for marching alone. Socialized mass production requires that the enterprises production activities should become more and more professional and cooperation among enterprises closer and closer. Under this overall background and economic environment, Zhou Zhijin said the competition among enterprises was not point to point, but chain to chain.

The collaborative improvement project of supply chain proposed by Yuchai aims at effectively using and managing the resources of the supply chain. Through the close cooperation and information sharing among supply chain partners, quick response will be made to customer demand, the risk of changeable market circumstances on business operation will be lowered, and the cost on supply chain operation will be reduced to the largest extent.

As is known to all, only after the supply chain system is full of vitality and forms strong competitive strength, win-win situation can be realized. If the future competition is chain-to-chain, your supply chain should have the advantage over your opponents to survive in the competition.

Speaking of the collaborative improvement project of supply chain proposed by Yuchai, Zhou Zhijin said confidently: I think this project will push Yuchai to a new level in management and enhance the enterprise profitability. Meanwhile, it will contribute to the development of the units involved in the collaborative supply chain. If the chain becomes powerful, every enterprise involved will acquire more development opportunities.

Top-level design, to ensure the implementation of lean from organization and administration.

The senior leaders of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems attach importance to the launch of the project Reduce the Failure Rate of Oil Pump Installation to Zero. Therefore, lean leading group led by General Manager was founded. Meanwhile, imitating the experience of Yuchais, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems founded lean promotion office on August 21 this year. The organization was responsible for the planning and implementation of lean improvement project, under the direct leadership of General Manager.

Zhou Zhijin thought that lean production should be put in the first place. The leaders should take the initiative, strongly support the project, and allocate resources in every aspect. Without these resources, the work could not be run smoothly.

Senior leaders of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems participated in the whole process of the project. The General Manager attaches great importance to the selection of every subproject leader related to quality and he will review the leaders in person. He requires that the persons in charge should be held by general technicians, said Ling Liming, senior manager responsible for quality control

For the project, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems gave priority to the support of human resource and input equipment resources. In order to solve the stuck problem of plunger and barrel assembly, the company purchased ultrasonic cleaners to replace manual washing, which greatly improved the cleanliness of plunger and barrel assemb

Lean manufacturing will have long-lasting vitality unless its system and culture are formed. The lean office of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems keeps a close eye on the lean work. Its objective, time node, duty officers were defined before the project design. Project implementation is tracked and reported every week and routing inspection for all projects is carried out every two weeks.

In addition, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems has also introduced some regulations and security systems such as Management Measures on Lean Operation, Management Measures on Lean Project of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems, Management Specifications on Lean Project of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems, and Visual Mangement Standards of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems.

The lean project is conducted from the system obedience in the beginning to the self-consciousness of the employees now, which is inseparable from sharing. Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems has set up a reward mechanism to award those teams with better lean work to mobilize and improve the employees enthusiasm in lean work.

Both lean production and lean thinking are driven.

It is the highest priority for Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems to reduce the installation failure rate of fuel injection pump assembly in Yuchai. In 2012, the PPM failure rate reached up to 16,685. According the requirements of project targets, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems will reduce the PPM to 12396 at the end of this year.

As far as the achievements acquired from lean improvement, Zou Fanding, deputy general manager of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems said excitedly, In fact, PPM has reduced to 10651 in September through lean improvement.

In order to solve the quality problem, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems made statistical analysis to the 2012 installation failure by using the lean scientific method, having finding that 72% of the performance failure, oil leak, and being stuck was the chief culprit of the high PPM.

After the problems were locked, the project team divided the problems according to their nature and assigned the departments to tackle them separately, with the development department responsible for the integrated performance fault, spare part workshops for the problems on being stuck, and the assembly shops for the problems on oil leak. Ling Liming acted as the leader of quality group in the whole project.

The problem of oil leak now has been basically settled by joint efforts of lean project team of the assembly shop. Zhang Kuisheng, deputy technical manager of the assembly shop, was responsible for the oil leak project and he introduced that by using chi-square test they found the oil leak of the outlet valve was related to the circular degree of the bonnet, a problem of design tolerance. By DOE and OFAT experiment design, and regression analysis, they optimized some key factors such as cone circular degree of the valve core and the valve seat, fuel capacity design, and release pressure.

Except technological breakthroughs, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems has done a lot of work such as 5S management, articles being processed reduction, labor efficiency improvement, and prompt delivery.

Currently, there are two challenges facing the manufacturing enterprises: one is cost reduction and the other is inventory improvement. Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems improved the technology, fixture, and line balance of Yuchais special line. Now, the overall balance of the package line is increased to 85% and its production capacity is improved from original daily out put of more than 800 sets of oil pumps to 1,600 sets.

Due to the improvement of the line balance and the application of slide, the stacking of articles being processed in the performance adjustment field on the first floor of the assembly shop has been largely improved. Yuan Jianping, shop manager, showed the writer the performance adjustment field where an installed fuel injection pump was sliding to the operating personnel smoothly. Yuan Jianping pointed to a small area before the eyes: Before improvement, articles being processed stacked here were more than 200 sets. It was in totally mess here. Now the production is conducted according to one slide, so the number of articles placed here is about 10 generally.

When walking into the assembly line in the second floor in the assembly shop, a well-ordered production picture jumped into the writers eyes, clean and tidy field, neat materials placed in order, and boards with clear marks. Yuan Jianping pointed to the materials and told the writer that most part assembly in the whole workshop such as pressurized compensator assembly, hoisting assembly, speed regulator parts, and adjuster parts were originally finished in assembly line field, which caused excessive materials, large stack area, numerous portable instruments in the material extraction, and time waste because of untimely transportation of assembly materials. We rebuilt an assembly field near the material warehouse to replace its original location in the second floor. All the preparation jobs will be finished in this field, which has largely reduced the transportation time and number of transportation times of the materials as well as improved the labor efficiency.

Lean is not only related to production, but also to the idea of the employees. Zhou Zhijin said firmly that they would continue to put lean manufacturing in the same height as their production and management and blend it into the blood of the employees instead of regarding it simply as the Yuchais requirement. Only in this way, lean improvement will generate strong endogenous power.

Speaking of the changes of the designers, Ling Liming told the writer that they paid less attention to the manufacturability, assembling ability, and mistake proofing in the design due to their high ambition. By using the lean tool analysis, we found the root of galloping fault of B4PM series oil pump-design spare parts interference. An obvious fact was put before them, so the designers solved the problem by optimizing the design.

The thought determines the action which determines the result. Lean concept is like a stone falling onto the lake surface of the thinking of members in Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems, arising rounds of ripples.

A seed sprouts

The collaborative improvement project of lean supply chain is just like a seed of hope falling into the heart of the people in Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems.

In the fierce market competition, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems leaders acutely realized that their survival in the future will be more difficult if they do not dig out the potential from the inner enterprise and fully improve their operating management. The project proposed by Yuchai not only caters to its development demand, but also sends a golden key to solve the development problem of the enterprise.

Process reengineering and One worker for multiple machines should be mentioned here for they are the achievements acquired from the lean implementation of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems. Process reengineering refers to a process that the value stream analysis is performed in the work flow to wipe off non-value labor, shorten production cycle, and improve production efficiency. This conforms to the lean requirement on waste reduction.

It is known that the equipment in the workshops of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems was piled up in order before, while the lean manufacturing requires peak efficiency for employees in their activity area. Through equipment stacking optimization and process reengineering, now, one can operate two, three, or even more devices instead of only one previously.

Lean is not only expanded in the special line of Yuchai, but also stretched into other production lines of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems. According to the introduction of Zhou Fanding, they adjusted the old line of electronic unit pump in line with the requirements of product processing procedures and lean work during National Day period. In the past, the inventory had more than 10,000 products. After improvement, the covering area of the equipment is reduced by 30%, the production efficiency increased by 10% and the number of articles being processed is kept at a level about 6,000 pieces.

All members on the supply chain are in cooperative relation. Only through joint efforts will they win the market. Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems has more than 80 upstream suppliers, but how to vitalize the resources in the supply chain? Zhou Zhijin knows fairly well. He says, As a supplier of Yuchai, we make practical efforts to promote the construction of lean supply chain. Meanwhile, we also instill this idea to our upstream suppliers to require them to operate according to the requirements of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems.

Jiang Hongwei, deputy director of lean office proposed his view about how to meet the challenge of Yuchais lean supply chain construction. He considered that to maximize the benefits of the supply chain, Yuchai should enhance its cooperation with Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems for design development, simplify and integrate some procedures in the supply chain, build information flow platform, break down inherent barriers, and share order information, production plan and quality requirements, so as to realize the interconnection in the whole process of the supply chain.

In 2016, Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems will form a line with the production capacity of 300,000 sets of electronic unit pumps and 200,000 sets of high-pressure common rail systems and realize the output value of RMB 2.5 billion Yuan, which is the common dream of the people of Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems and a leap of enterprise development. Lean is just like a door of hope, having rooted in Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems. Nanyue Fuel Injection Systems opens the door and there will be endless surprises to be expected.

(Yang Mingze   Chen Xiaoxiao)