GTI Fabrication Gets Lean to Grow Smartly

Buffalo, New York based GTI Fabrication is a privately-owned company established in 2015 that converts shipping containers for use across a variety of applications including portable shelters, portable military showers, and military housing for quick deployment.  Their rapidly expanding business is located on the shore of Lake Erie on an old Bethlehem Steel site.

GTI Fabrication has seen rapid growth and experienced the strains of an organization and processes that accompany rapid growth.  As it grew, was struggling with turn-around time, and product quality.  The team at GTI saw that their existing processes were inefficient and wasted many of their resources.  This demonstrated itself in emerging quality issues, struggling to meet target deliveries, and extended schedules.

Knowing that some changes were needed, GTI Fabrication turned to business management consulting company Insyte, part of the New York MEP and the MEP National Network™.  Insyte worked with GTI to implement lean manufacturing methodologies significantly reducing waste, cost, lead time and improve the quality of their delivery and products.  Using value stream mapping they gained an understanding of how processes functioned and to identified concerns around the execution and results of those processes. Welding emerged as the primary issue and the constraining operation.

Improvements were implemented in both the welding procedures themselves, modifications to the structure of the teams, and to the engineering drawings / information provided to the production team eliminating ambiguity and improving quality.  These changes bolstered capacity and throughput for the whole operation enabling continued growth for GTI.

Results include:

• Reduction in required storage providing 15% more productive floor space
• 10% labor hour reduction due to a need for less reworking