Lean Manufacturing Comes to Eberl Iron Works, Inc.

Eberl Iron Works, Inc. recently launched a Lean manufacturing
initiative. We partnered with University at Buffalo's Center for
Industrial Effectiveness (TCIE), a program of UB Engineering, for
training and implementation services. Funding for Lean training was
secured by a competitive application to the NYS Department of Labor's
37L Training Grant Program. The grant runs from July 1, 2006 through
July 1, 2007.

What is Lean Manufacturing? Lean is aimed at the elimination of waste
in every area of production including customer relations, product
design, supplier networks and factory management. Its goal is to
incorporate less human effort, less inventory, less time to develop
products, and less space to become highly responsive to customer demand
while producing top quality products in the most efficient and
economical manner possible.

Our reason for embarking on Lean was two-fold: we needed to better
manage our recent growth and to address space constraints. We had heard
great things about Lean, and we wanted to empower our workforce. Armed
with this desire, we approached TCIE based on referrals from previous
clients. Several past clients of TCIE (Child Care Resource Network and
Lancaster Steel) had achieved significant Lean success and gave strong
testimonials.

We have worked closely with TCIE trainers and Lean engineers Don Bowes
and Al Hammonds. The training program, which is still in progress,
began with an Introduction to Lean Concepts, and continued with 5S
training, Value Stream Mapping, Pull/Kanban, a week-long hands-on Kaizen
event, and will finish with a Lean Deployment and Key Metrics course.
We are investing more than nine months in the program, which will
involve 100% of the workforce.

Lean has demonstrated that the company has internal problem-solving
capability if we take the time to identify problems through better
communication and better planning. All participants, particularly
veteran employees, have been very excited and hopeful that Lean will
make for an enriched and more productive workplace.