Avio - Diepen Process optimization and flexible staff deployment

2013 – Avio – Diepen in Alphen a / d Rijn, the Netherlands is a medium-sized plant, part of a company with offices in three continents. It is a stockholding supplier of components for many airliners. The process consists of the following steps: stock – order – delivery – invoice.

Why this is workplace innovation
Together with the staff,  the operation in the plant is improved and a system to increase the internal flexibility is developed which generates more challenging work for staff.

Approach
With guidance from TNO, management and staff made the ordering process more transparent by using an ‘order completion schedule’. Then they proposed improvements measures to diminish waiting times between process steps.
In addition, a flexible matrix conform the 3×3 rule is designed: each task should be done by at least three persons and each worker should have the skills to perform three tasks, in the end.

Results
For Avio – Diepen the reliability of delivery  is very important. Since the start of the project, the number and variety of late deliveries lowered from 8% to 4 %.
A brief description of the case (in Dutch) can be found in the attached pdf .

Themes : Flexible organization , Work Smarter
Sector : Commercial Services
Source: Case

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