Cost Reduction at an Oil Well Equipment Manufacturer

A manufacturer of sub-sea wellhead equipment was implementing JI in its machining and assembly operations. On one component a special fixture had to be installed every two weeks. Due to limited experience installing the fixture, and its infrequent use, the fixture was often damaged on start up of the machining operation. The costs of repair to the fixture was 600 pounds every two weeks. After one machine/fixture crash, the supervisor developed a job instruction breakdown and trained his entire team on the fixture’s installation. After the training, there were no more crashes which resulted in an estimated savings of over 15,000 pounds annually.