Stone Fabricator Defies Industry with Perfect Delivery Record, Cutting-edge Lean Manufacturing Program

July 19, 2001

COLD SPRING, Minn. - In a quest to become the Toyota Motor Corp. of its industry, one of the largest memorialization firms and the largest U.S. granite quarrier has launched a lean manufacturing program, resulting in a performance that is unprecedented in its industry.

Cold Spring Granite's 130,000-square-foot MonuWest plant in the firm's central Minnesota headquarters of Cold Spring yielded a 100 percent on-time manufacturing for 25 consecutive weeks, something that is unheard of in stone fabrication. For nearly half a year, 34,000 memorials and monuments, with different specifications requested by customers, were manufactured on time and delivered to thousands of destinations across the country - an astonishing record considering the bulk of granite memorials and the precision and customization that is required to build them.

Cold Spring Granite is determined to extend this success to all five locations in the U.S. and Canada. The plants manufacture 24,000 types of products comprised of upright monuments, flat markers, cast bronze granite bases, cremation products, mausoleums, granite slabs, and tiles and countertops for building work and residential construction.

The MonuWest plant's 25-week run of perfect performance eclipsed the 18-week mark set by the firm's Granite West plant, specializing in slabs and building material. Cold Spring's Granit Bronz marker plant is also going strong with a 100% on-time performance that has lasted 13 weeks.

Manufacturing Cold Spring Granite's products on time requires coordination and completion of hundreds of thousands of product variations and workplace procedures. No memorialization maker or building works manufacturer has achieved the continuous success of Cold Spring Granite in the country.

"A colleague of mine was flabbergasted that we were doing something so cutting-edge and unique in a mature company and industry," explains Cold Spring Granite Chief Financial Officer Greg Flint. "I told him the same people that expect meals, pictures and oil changes in minutes order from us and that if we didn't reduce our lead-times we would be left by the wayside."

Launched in 1999, Cold Spring Granite's lean manufacturing program is patterned after Toyota's, considered to be the world model, and the time-based management methods taught by the TBM Consulting Group, headed by CEO Anand Sharma, who was recently named a "hero of manufacturing" by Fortune magazine.

Lean manufacturing is eliminating waste throughout the organization. Cutting lead-time - the period from when a product is ordered through final delivery - Cold Spring Granite is able to fulfill orders and customers' needs while using a minimum of labor, space, equipment and raw materials. Eliminating wasteful non-value-added processes is the primary goal of lean management.

Cold Spring Granite's lean management program is a never-ending process. Continuous improvement is practiced through "kaizen events." Kaizen is the Japanese term for continuous improvement. Every week kaizen teams made up of people from different departments and non-employees - customers, suppliers or retailers - are created. Each team sets out to achieve specific goals to reduce inventory and floor space, increase productivity and reduce lead-time.

Through lean management, Cold Spring Granite plans to double annual revenues in five years and increase productivity by 15 percent every year. While other stone fabricators and memorialization companies have suffered a downturn in performance due partly to a softening economy, Cold Spring Granite's lean management efforts have paid off. The company expects to grow this year by as much as 10 percent.

###

For more information about Cold Spring Granite's lean manufacturing program and to schedule an interview with Greg Flint, e-mail Linda Mathiasen at LMathiasen@coldspringgranite.com.

[home] [site map] [contact us] [granite colors]
©2003 Cold Spring Granite Inc. All rights reserved.