New Equipment and Processes Boost Responsiveness

January 2013

New NTY 250 and Robodrills Speed Up Production

We recently added a new, bigger Nakamura Tome NTY 250 to the floor, allowing us to bar feed materials of larger diameters and reducing the need for machine attendance. This efficiency shortens cycle times and reduces labor costs.

We also added a new Fanuc Robodrill and upgraded an existing Robodrill in one of our “Super Cells,” doubling that cell’s output to keep up with growing customer demand.

Kennebec president, Wick Johnson, says, “These latest equipment purchases are all part of ongoing efforts to make processes leaner, expand capacity, and reduce delivery time for customers.”

Value-Stream Mapping Cuts New-Job Startup in Half

Kennebec Technologies has realized significant startup-time reduction through an innovative process we tested recently on a number of pilot jobs. The process, which involves more people from more disciplines earlier in the planning phase, came out of a value-stream mapping project we conducted with Maine MEP last year.

Vice President of Operations, Harvey Smith, says that when the process cut startup time on the floor in half, he and his team wasted no time getting seven Kaisen events underway to explore how these learnings can be implemented as standard operating procedure for similar new jobs.

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