Kickstart: Taking fewer steps to bring lean manufacturing to tooling

Some toolmakers have been a little slow to adopt some of the principles of lean manufacturing. The thinking, as was explained to me in the past, is that each tool is a unique item. It's the opposite of mass production, so it doesn't fit the traditional concept of lean.

That attitude has (mostly) changed. Digital manufacturing and Industry 4.0 made it possible to program equipment like a CNC machine, then run it without an operator. That's been a big benefit for companies losing veteran employees to retirement.

Top companies have gone well beyond that, however, making it possible to run shops overnight or even all weekend long without any employees present. PN's Catherine Kavanaugh has a story from a virtual tour sponsored by the American Mold Builders Association of Nebraska toolmaker Dramco Tool Co. Inc., where owners expanded and reconfigured the shop in 2021 to dramatically cut the number of steps taken by employees on the job. One goal was to have everything, even the bathrooms, within a 30-second walk for workers.

"I think it has worked out really well. ... We've dramatically reduced the walking, probably an 80 percent reduction in moving around the shop," co-owner Justin Pfenning said. "We adopted a philosophy that we wanted to keep the things the toolmakers need the most the closest. That's a basic rule of lean."

Now that Easter has passed, the question for environmentally conscious consumers may be "do I have to throw out this plastic egg?"

Dublin-based nonprofit environmental group Repak is urging households to recycle plastic and paper packaging, and it predicts Irish homes will recycle 58,000 metric tons of Easter-related items this year. Currently, public policy in Ireland allows all plastics to be recycled, although in a survey of 1,000 people, Repak found that 35 percent of people do not know that.

Repak also asked those people the important question: What are they putting in their baskets?

Chocolate eggs topped the list (54 percent) with about 50 percent of shoppers buying six chocolate eggs or more. The type of chocolate is more important (62 percent) than whether it comes in a sustainable egg, but 15 percent of survey takers age 18-24 said the packaging will make the biggest difference in choosing what chocolate to buy. On average, 10 percent of those in older generations said they would prefer sustainable Easter egg packaging.

For those people skipping chocolate, 23 percent said they will give toys, 28 percent will buy some other candy, while 17 percent will provide baked goods.

Toyota's new electric vehicle, the bZ4X, comes with a urethane skin as part of the carmaker's "commitment to a carbon neutral future."

The interior, including the instrument panel, uses Toyota's proprietary thermoplastic polyurethane SofTex covering. The carmaker has been using the TPU as an alternative to leather in an increasing number of vehicles for seats and interior trim.

Toyota dealers have promoted SofTex since at least 2011, when it was an option on Prius hybrid cars and Camry sedans, and the company is now promoting it as a key sustainability angle for some of its highest-profile vehicle launches.