Lean Plant Tour – Independent Can

Companies actively engaged in Lean offer a treasure trove of information when it comes to their respective Lean journeys. Benchmarking these companies brings you new ideas, an affirmation of your current practices, and an opportunity to be spurred on and take next steps in your own organization. To that end, we are continuing to bring you monthly tours so you can take advantage of this knowledge base. Each plant tour offers a unique opportunity to dialog with peers from across industries and functions about best practices, challenges and solutions to moving your organization forward.

Independent Can has embraced Lean principles and techniques to achieve shorter lead times and enhance production flexibility, recognizing the competitive advantage they offer. On this tour you will see how they have restructured the layout of equipment on the plant floor for the most effective flow – starting at printing the metal, to slitting, to the press room, onto the can lines and then out the door. Rapid changeover, value stream mapping, and spaghetti diagramming, are just a few of the Lean tools and techniques that have supported this processing transformation. 

Join us on this tour to see how they’ve harnessed Lean thinking to improve lead times, on-time delivery, and other performance measures. Are they where they want to be yet? Of course not—Lean is about continuous improvement. But they know they’re on the right path, committed to ongoing process improvement, and developing a Lean culture of excellence.