Productivity -- Value-added -- Information

Value-added Case Study No. 27

The problem
A high-tech component manufacturer used water-soluble solder paste to adhere surface mounted components to circuit boards through a screen-printing operation. Because of short stencil life of the product and the method of cycling circuit boards, the process caused paste in the bottom of the cartridge to be discarded.

The solution
General Tool & Supply Company in Portland, Ore., recommended changing from a cartridge dispenser that held 600 grams of solder paste to 500-gram jar containers.

The result
Switching from a cartridge dispenser to jars enabled General Tool & Supply to consolidate purchases from multiple customers and achieve price savings in the unit cost. In addition, the customer decreased the amount of paste it previously discarded. At a cost of 9 cents per gram, the savings on 943 jars over a 6-month period was $8,487, for an annualized savings of $16,974.

The documentation
Click here to see the internal report General Tool & Supply used to track the savings it generated for its customer.

The story
Click here to read how General Tool & Supply began to roll out a company-wide cost savings documentation effort