In 2020 the renovation of the warehouses. Now that of the production lines. The Adr Axles group continues apace with its strategy of optimizing flows and production processes as well as integrating them with logistics. With a view to greater production efficiency and quality.
“Lean industry”, an English expression that can be translated into Italian in a non-literal way with the allocution “lean production”. It was coined in 1988 by the American engineer John Krafcik to connote those manufacturing standards introduced by Toyota in its plants between 1950 and 1975 aimed at giving rise to large production volumes without penalizing the quality of the product and ensuring maximum construction efficiency and possible logistics. Toyota completely overturned the concept of mass production hitherto in vogue starting from the idea that a modern and well-organized industry must not offer the market what it knows how to build by trying to do it at the lowest possible price, but must offer what the market asks for the price that the market is willing to bear. Hence the need to have production lines that are as flexible as possible in order to be able to produce even small product batches, an objective that can only be achieved by integrating the Group's commercial, production and logistics divisions with a single large software with a view to "supply chain", an English expression that can be translated with the formula "supply chain".
Objectives: quality and efficiency
Today the inspiring concepts underlying the lean industry have spread to all industrial sectors operating in terms of large volumes and in recent times they have also been adopted by the Adr Axles group, one of the most important manufacturers of agricultural axles in the world. Precisely with a view to lean production, last year it actually intervened on its warehouses in Uboldo, on the outskirts of Milan, in order to insert them directly into the production cycle. He completely restructured the internal circulation of materials and rationalized it in every work area. Now it has also reorganized the latter by focusing on four basic elements: the integration of production processes with an enlarged management software, the improvement of internal logistics to reduce the transit times of the material, the automation of quality controls in line and , above all, the revaluation of personnel by placing the figure of the operator at the center of the plant processes so as to emphasize their value and professionalism. Therefore no longer a mere executor of orders, but an active protagonist of the production cycle.
The renewal will be global
The new approach, the progenitor of a renewal of production that will affect all the Group's plants in the future, as well as allowing different productions without having to reorganize the line each time, ensures higher product quality as it makes use of systems control systems that make individual operators responsible by also preventing them from making mistakes and play in favor of efficiency by increasing production capacity between 30 and 40 percent compared to a traditional production system. Operators also work more easily, also seeing their professional skills grow.
As mentioned, the basis of the new Adr Axles production system is deep IT integration between the various divisions of the company, a management software that practically envelops and connects men, machines, suppliers, customers and every single link in the group. Adr ensuring that each order is translated immediately and without the need for paper passages into work arrangements to which each department is then called to respond. When all the details needed to make a single product are available, then the final assembly starts, in turn controlled by intuitive and precise checklists that ensure compliance with the quality standards set by Adr for each of its individual products .
