cnc
technology

The reorganized plant floor in Lacey
has plenty of room for expansion and
flexibility. Batch size is regulated to
ensure smooth flow through the plant.
Insourcing to
improve output
College and government furniture
manufacturer tackles one small
constraint at a time on its journey
toward lean manufacturing.
by Karl D. Forth, Editor
kforth@chartcomm.com

(in sôrc ing)

The business practice of using current personnel or resources for new tasks or projects.

In sourc ing:

••

'

Source: Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English.

If your company isn’t outsourcing at least some
part of your operation, something’s wrong,
right? Not so, says Jeff Meehan, of R. T. London,

formerly R. T. London-Norse. “If we can insource it, we will,” says the general manager of the company’s Washington division. “Our goal is to shrink the lead time and increase the throughput. The way to do that is by insourcing.”

plant facts

R. T. London

Lacey, Wash.
Product: Casegoods for colleges and government
Employees: 25 in Lacey, 35 in Grand Rapids

Annual sales: $16 million

Plant size: 72,000 square feet (in an 85,000 square foot building)

www.rtlondon.com

Insourcing is just one of several moves this manufacturer of casegoods and college residence hall furniture has made to make itself more efficient and infinitely more lean. As a whole, the company has also immersed itself in books and movies about lean thinking, it has worked to create an optimal batch size for throughput and it has begun to heavily invest in new machinery.

Previously, the company, which makes casegoods such as residence hall furniture for colleges and universities, mostly outsourced and assembled. When Meehan came to the company in 2003, he looked at products the company could make in house, then designed the process to accommodate that.

Meehan wants all employees to think like owners. In
Lacey, there are 20 to 25 employees in a 72,000-square-