Building Complete Operator Workstations

Challenge

An automotive manufacturer was looking for ways to cut lead time on purchasing their operator workstations from a very long 12+ weeks. On top of that, they wanted to source work locally as much as possible. Patti Engineering, a long-time provider of services and trusted advisor since 2010 for this company in Texas, worked to develop a way to reduce the lead-time and source the parts locally.

Solution

The customer wanted the workstations to look and feel exactly like the existing workstations to maintain consistency within the plant and keep things simple for their operators. Patti Engineering had worked with this same customer on multiple projects involving installing and/or moving workstations, so we were very familiar with them. We worked in conjunction with the customer to find local sources on all the individual parts and pieces and build the workstation.

Results

In the end, we wrapped everything up into 1 price (with multiple quantity discounts) to not only install and commission a workstation as we had in the past, but also provide the physical workstation as well. We were also able to cut the lead time in half from 12+ weeks down to 6-7 weeks for about the same price they were paying the other supplier. The workstations look and function exactly the same as the existing and the customer has continued to purchase workstations (~20/year) from Patti Engineering for the last couple of years.