In Chula Vista, Jabil is working toward establishment of an apprenticeship program.
On-the-job training will occur at Jabil with the academic portion held at San Diego Community College District's City College, said Rose LaMuraglia, dean of the school of business/information technology and cosmetology.
Shannon Barrett, general manager since June, advocates lean principles, equipment improvements, warehouse-flow streamlining and assembly advances. Barrett holds a Six Sigma Master Black Belt certification.
“We have experienced a 47-percent decrease in complaints over nine months,” he said in an interview. Further, the site gained 22 percent in Overall Equipment Effectiveness over two months.
In recent years, Jabil invested about $3 million on facility improvements to maximize use of the land-locked 77,234-square-foot Chula Vista facility, said Brian Charles, operations manager. A third party provides some offsite warehousing of finished goods.
In the molding area, insulation was installed, lighting transitioned to light emitting diodes from incandescent bulbs and nine industrial-sized air conditioning units were added “to stabilize environmental conditions,” Charles said. In addition, Jabil refurbished the front office and lunchroom.
In addition, Jabil made capital investments. The site acquired 11 Wittmann Gravimax G14-m gravimetric blenders, obtained two Milacron Roboshot presses from other Jabil locations and, for assembly operations in September, added a UR5 vision-guided collaborative robot from Universal Robots A/S.
So far, Jabil has five of the Gravimax blenders on the production floor. Four are being assembled, and two are on order.
During 2016, the site received a 350-ton Roboshot from Jabil's Mebane, N.C., plant in March and a165-ton Roboshot from Jabil's Hanover Park, Ill., plant in April.
Now, Jabil in Chula Vista operates 30 presses of 7-550 tons including eight Milacrons, seven Toshibas, five Fanucs, three JSWs, two Engels and Sumitomos and one Nissei, Toyo and Netstal.
In 2015, the site instituted 5S — sort, set, shine, standardize, sustain — classes and compliance procedures for all departments.
On Nov. 1, Jabil will activate a Hana database management system from SAP SE for molding, assembly and warehouse functions.
Employees post suggestions on a Continuous Improvement Board, and nine support teams explore the feasibility of making changes.
The aerospace industry accounts for about 93 percent of sales for the site. Other business involves the medical market and consumer products.
Gholam Horriat, assembly supervisor, explained and showed how his team combines eight sizes — mini to 32 ounces — of plastic-molded cartridges with internal plungers and foil-protected dasher wheel/mixer tools. Multiple lengths of attached nozzles are bent to meet the customer's requirements. Epoxies, glues and isolation materials go into the cartridges for use as needed in satellites and aircraft. The job arrived in Chula Vista in 2007.
Jabil in Chula Vista employs 126 full time and, on average, uses about 25 others for temporary assignments.
In 1988, Nypro Inc. of Clinton, Mass., acquired the Chula Vista health care products technology center of plastics processor Kendall Co. Publicly traded Jabil Circuit Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla., purchased Nypro for $665 million in July 2013. The Jabil Packaging Solutions division reports within Jabil's Diversified Manufacturing Services sector.
Barrett said Jabil in Chula Vista had sales of $28 million for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31. He projects an increase up to 4 percent for the next fiscal year.
