1. Targeting Customer Service and Market Growth Using Lean Methodology
Presentation by
George Foss, CEO
3L Filters Ltd.
Cambridge
Ontario
High Performance Manufacturing Consortium Conference
May 13, Oakville, Ontario

2. Presentation Topics Company Profile The Need to Change Why Now?
‘Front Office’ Initiatives
Measured Improvements
Future Vision

3. What We Do
Engineered Filtration Solutions for Industrial and Nuclear Power Plant Applications

4. Markets Served

5. Company Profile Established in 1965
Head office and 2 manufacturing plants in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
Total 60,000 ft2 manufacturing capacity
Design, development, fabrication and servicing of high value-added liquid filtration and separation systems
Reputation for fast customer response

6. History of Ownership

7. History of Market Strategy

8. Conventional commercial product lines Operations Manager for
Keys to Success
Complementary partnership skills…
Qualifications
Market Focus
Daily Activities
Bob Goel President
MSc (1972), P.Eng. (1976), PhD (1977)
Highly engineered & nuclear products
Technical proposals & accreditations
George Foss CEO CMA (1975), BusAdmin (1984)
Conventional commercial product lines
Operations Manager for
2 plants

9. Core Competencies State-of-the-art Engineering & Manufacturing
In-house design, analysis and manufacturing
Design
Seismic Analysis
Stress Analysis
Manufacturing

10. Market Focus
Nuclear Products
50% of revenue

11. Nuclear Power Plants Served
CANADIAN
OPG Bruce-A
OPG Bruce-B
OPG Pickering-A
OPG Pickering-B
OPG Darlington
NBEPC Point Lepreau
HQ Gentilley
Maple-1 (AECL Chalk River)
Maple-2 (AECL Chalk River )
INTERNATIONAL
Cordoba Argentina
KEPCO Wolsong Unit-1 Korea
KEPCO Wolsong Unit-2 Korea
KEPCO Wolsong Unit-3 Korea
KEPCO Wolsong Unit-4 Korea
Cernavoda Unit-1 Romania
Qinshan Unit-1 China
Qinshan Unit-2 China
Washington Power
North East Utility

12. Manufacturing & Assembly
Nuclear Products
Disposable Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Filter for Nuclear Stations
Design & Engineering
Manufacturing & Assembly
Test & Performance

13. Nuclear Products
Permanent Nuclear Filter Vessels with Replaceable Basket
Primary Heat Transport Filter
PHT Gland Seal Filter
Moderator System Filter

14. Disposable Filter Baskets for Miscellaneous Nuclear Filters
Nuclear Products
Disposable Filter Baskets for Miscellaneous Nuclear Filters
Shield Tank & End Shield Cooling System Filter Basket Pickering-A NGS
PHT Filter Basket for Darlington NGS
Spent Fuel Bay Basket For Pt. Lepreau NGS
PHT Gland Seal and F/M Filter Basket for Pickering NGS

15. 4000 SCFM Single Tower Vapour Recovery Dryers
Nuclear Products
4000 SCFM Single Tower Vapour Recovery Dryers
3831 DR-1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10

16. 600 SCFM Twin Tower Vapour Recovery Dryers
Nuclear Products
600 SCFM Twin Tower Vapour Recovery Dryers

17. Commercial Product Applications
Market Focus
Commercial Product Applications
Engineered to Order
50% of revenue

18. Industrial Clients Served
All major engineering consulting companies
Fluor Daniel
Stone and Webster
SNC Lavalin
Bechtel
Kellog Brown and Root
All major Refineries and Chemical Plants
Exxon, Shell Oil, British Petroleum, Petro Canada, Chevron
Formosa Chemical, Formosa Plastics, Dow Chemical
Many industrial and automotive in-plant filtration applications
Aviation installations

19. Compact Filter/ Separator Vessels for Fixed Installations
Aviation Products
Vertical Filter/Separators for Tank Farms
Compact V and VV Series Filter/Separators comply fully with API Bulletin 1581, Third Edition, requirements for Class B equipment.
Compact design
Code Qualification
Simplified Maintenance
Field Proven
High Performance
Compact Filter/ Separator Vessels for Fixed Installations

20. Aviation Products Fuel Monitors for Mobile Refueling Trucks
Filters with superior performance and reliability for assuring clean, dry fuel, normally used at the final point in an aircraft fueling system.
Custom Designed 3l
Fuel Monitor

21. Aviation Products Horizontal Filter / Separator / Monitors
for Skid Refueling Components
Filters designed to remove particles and coalesce emulsified water from hydrocarbon fluids.
The horizontal filter/separator design provides more convenient access to the cartridges than the vertical design.

22. General Industrial Filtration
VF Series Fluid Filters
Vertically oriented filters using industry-standard pleated paper media to remove particulate to 0.5 microns.
They can be constructed to house numerous cartridges within a variety of diameters to accommodate flow rates.

23. Water / Beverage Industry
FWH Micron Filters
Vertically oriented filters designed to remove solid contaminants from a liquid stream using standard spunyarn cartridges which create effective separation using depth filtration. May also accommodate pleated elements.

24. Paint / Ink Industry Multibag Filters
As standard or custom design, the BF series filters are able to handle high flow rates and large concentrations of particulate for a wide range of liquids.
Constructed to ASME Sec.VIII, MBF series filters are available as code or non-code vessels.

25. Pipeline Course Filtration
Dehydrators
Horizontally oriented vessels containing replaceable coalescent filter packs. A sump collects separated water and filtered contaminant for easy removal.
Repack Cartridges

26. The old ways weren’t working
The Need for Change
The old ways weren’t working

27. Target The Vision Customer Resource Depletion
Changes in Manufacturing Code
Offshore Competition
Labour Pool
Pricing

28. Corporate Issues Responsiveness to customers
Availability of skilled engineering personnel
Employee loyalty
Rapid changes in technology
Quality
Market focus
Trend forecasting
Profitability

29. Market Issues Price pressures Rising Canadian dollar
Need for global reach
Declining customer loyalty
Customer convenience
Customer resource depletion

30. Where to Focus? Manufacturing? Engineering!
Currently as efficient as feasible
Engineer-to-order production entirely dependent on 'front-end' processes
Engineering!
Greatest opportunity for improvement
Sales performance directly affected

31. Value-Stream Map Analysis
How to Improve?
Apply principles of
Lean Manufacturing
Step #1
Value-Stream Map Analysis

32. The Old Way
10 weeks
Typical Time Frame

33. Economic Boom of China & Pacific Rim
Why Now?
2002
Economic Boom of China & Pacific Rim
1990s
2000s
PROFITABILITY
1980s
1970s
1960s
TIME

34. Strategy
Get closer to the Customer
Eliminate internal layers that waste time and money
Build on in-house product knowledge

35. Tactics Standardize products and processes Empower Sales staff
Improve company performance
Engineering throughput
errors
Quotation success rate
response time
Manufacturing delivery lead time
Quality control
Cost competitiveness
Require payback in less than 1 year

36. Adopting a new Lean methodology…
The Steps
Adopting a new Lean methodology…

37. 1) Management Commitment
Reviewed technology marketplace
Partnered with established engineering software development firm
Applied a proven technology platform
Selected 13 product families for:
Detailed Design
Bill of Materials
Fabrication Planning
Costing

38. 2) Defined Business Requirements
Analyzed requirements for:
Sales
Engineering
Purchasing
Manufacturing
Identified problems and constraints
e.g. lack of internal qualified engineering resources
Collaborated with vendor to:
Create a simple web user interface
Formalize input / output documentation

39. 3) Built Knowledge Database
Assembly
Configuration
Component
Parameters
Configuration Control
Rules & Data

40. 4) Integrated with Operations
Connected to existing network
Wrote and tested ERP link to access:
Customer records
Cost standards (purchasing & processing)
Trained staff
Sales to operate it
Engineering to maintain it

41. Overview of Implementation
Multiuser environment suited for operation by non-technical staff
Custom interface for specification input
Web-based, works on existing PC network
Server with embedded CAD engine, SQL database, document output translators
Generates detailed 3D CAD assembly
Transfers B.O.M.s to ERP for costing

42. Intuitive Interface
Product Specs

43. Automated Design
3D CAD Assembly

44. Costing Detail
B.O.M. & Routing

45. Documentation
Quote Drawing

46. Sales Collaboration
3D Reference

47. Automation Product Examples
Component Detail
Welding Detail

48. Innovation Is Fostered
With more time for Engineering to improve product, new inventions yield new competitive advantage…

49. Compare Old & New Closures
Time-Consuming
Swing Bolt
Effortless patented
Easy Access

50. Applications Sales Quotations Purchasing - Accurate Bill of Materials
Rapid product configuration and costing
Design visualization and approval documents
Purchasing - Accurate Bill of Materials
Production Engineering
3D CAD assemblies delivered in minutes
Last-minute design check, quick addition of custom product details where necessary

51. Improvements (on Commercial Product Lines)
Reduced average quote turnaround from 14 days to 3 day
Increased sales success rate 8% to 25%
Reduced pre-production engineering work 90% with generated CAD model
Reduced schedule conflicts between standard & custom engineering by 40%
Product quality
delivery lead time

52. Future Vision Improve ERP interface (or replace ERP)
Generate all low-level manufacturing instructions to improve costing detail
Expose system to external Internet for access by distribution networks
Add more flexibility for integrated system product (e.g Skid Packages)

53. Skid Package Example

54. Conclusions Targets for Lean were met
Commercial products and processes now standardized
Company efficiency improved dramatically
Initiative payback less than 1 year
A need for continuous improvement
Further streamlining of processes
Introduction of new products
Accommodating changing legislation

55. Targeting Customer Service and Market Growth Using Lean Methodology
Contact Information
George Foss, CEO
3L Filters Ltd.
427 Elgin St.
Cambridge, Ontario
Tel: (519) ext 330