Cast House department after launching her system improvement and innovation activities has received a total of 69 ideas from its employees. Twenty-six (26) out of 40 ideas considered are being implemented with the remaining 14 at various review and evaluating stages.
Estimated savings for some of the implemented ideas are:
- One-time cost of purchasing sixteen (16) sow molds valued at $34,400.00
- Monthly cost of purchasing sow puller tong valued at $5,222.23
- Monthly mailing of shipping documents by courier services valued at $198.74
- Yearly cost of purchasing pouring chain valued at $258.00.
In the Production Services area, sixteen (16) sow molds scrapped for severe cracks were retrieved, gouged and welded, and put back into the system for use. Imported sow Puller tongs which were breaking frequently were replaced with inplant machined tongs to save VALCO from importing.
Warehouse purchase history indicates that one (1) sow puller was being purchased each month. In addition,improved shackle chains were fabricated to replace the use of pouring chain to pull solidified sows from sow molds.
Besides the tangible cost benefits stated above, VALCO's Customer relations with ALCOA was boosted as the latter expressed profound satisfaction with the new packing list/analysis file format and ALCOA plans to recommend it to their other suppliers for adoption.
