Sierra Nevada Corp
One SNC division in Sparks, NV produces Ruggedized Handheld Computers (RHC) for military personnel. As they continue to ramp up production of the RHC units, improvements in material flow, operator takt times, part presentation and part quality were needed to meet customer demand. Components were batched at each assembly table and the throughput was not being optimized. Also, quality issues were aggravated by large quantities of components being produced at each cell. Component failures and design issues were often ignored for weeks or months due to all-out effort to build as many units as possible to yield enough good units to make shipments.