The individual parts of the shelf bucket control assembly come from as far away as Korea and as close as the next town; the overall materials pipeline for this part is 45 days long. Using our computerized logistics management system, we were able to manage that pipeline with just 5-10 days worth of material in our plant, producing 4,000 parts per day, and running just one day off the back of the GE refrigerator assembly line. We manufactured the component for four years without a single serious delay, and won GE's Distinguished Supplier Award, granted to the top 3% of their appliance suppliers world-wide, three years in a row.

Most importantly, we took cost out of the product and increased quality levels. Through a combination of re-sourcing, re-engineering to eliminate redundant parts, and redesign of plastic moldings to eliminate material, we reduced the total cost of the assembly by $340,000 per year. At the same time, using quality control techniques such as FEMA (Failure Effects Mode Analysis), we significantly improved the quality level of this and 7 other assemblies supporting GE appliances. When we took the job over, defects per million were running at a level of from 3-4 thousand; we had reduced that to under 100 by the beginning of 1998.