Teton Homes Manufactures Success with enVista

In the summer 2002, Casper, Wyoming-based Teton Homes was in fortunate position. The leading manufacturer of luxury fifth-wheel Recreational Vehicles (RV) was enjoying another record year, fueled by the strong regain in popularity of the RV industry post September 11, and strong expansion of its target market - the 50-65 age group. Demand for the 400+ RVs they produce annually had never been stronger. In fact, Teton's customers often paid up to $100,000 for their luxury RVs and waited several months to take delivery. Teton had developed a reputation for quality and durability over its 36-year history, and its reputation had even reached Hollywood as several stars specifically request Teton Homes luxury RVs for filming on location.

The owner, president and CEO of Teton Homes, Tony Ingram, was puzzled over the best way to handle the company's growth. He was growing out of his 100,000-square foot manufacturing facility and it looked like more materials would need to be stored in the adjacent 25,000-square feet warehouse to support demand. In addition, the growing trend of full-body painted RVs was pushing Teton toward the acquisition of a new paint booth, and it looked like a new building was going to be necessary to house it. There was enough land available, but the investment was still significant.

In the fall of 2002, Teton Homes came to enVista for help. Before making a significant capital investment in additional building space, he wanted to make sure that there were no alternatives. enVista first analyzed the flow of materials involved in building Teton's RVs, and the current layout of the manufacturing facility.

Three facts became apparent:

  1. a large proportion of materials were handled several times before final installation
  2. there were no fixed storage locations for a lot of components and
  3. the storage location for a lot of parts was too far from their point of use

"Teton is no different than a lot of manufacturers facing growth. It's the kid's bedroom syndrome: if space exists, it will be used," said Michel Babineau, Manufacturing Principal, enVista. "Management feels that the company is running out of space, while in fact there is a lot of it. It is also very hard to determine the time needed to build a unit when assemblers spend a significant - and variable - amount of time chasing parts around the facility."

Hoping to avoid the cost of building additional space, Teton Homes partnered with enVista on a facility redesign project. First, enVista helped Teton determine the optimal storage location for each major component as close as possible from its point of use, and established a "one-bin Kanban" methodology borrowed from the Just-in-Time concept. Components frequently used are ordered automatically as their level drops below a pre-determined level. Second, enVista helped redesign several storage areas to make critical components easier to access. Finally, in the spring of 2003, enVista will help put in place a "kitting" process where all components, tools, and accessories necessary to build a RV will be brought together to the assembling station before each task.

"The key to improving efficiency in a large facility is to introduce a few very simple efficiency concepts and repeat them every chance we get to the floor. At a certain point in the Teton project, first-line supervisors and assemblers started implementing improvements themselves," said Babineau. "There is no way a handful of resources can make it all happen in a timely manner."

"I never realized how much space we had in this facility until we started this project. We've moved the storage location of most of our components from the warehouse to the main assembly plant and we were able to build the paint booth directly inside the warehouse," said Tony Ingram, CEO, Teton Homes. "I feel like we've only scratched the surface. We've only redesigned the storage locations in the first few stations on the line, and we've already seen a significant reduction in labor costs, in addition to avoiding the cost of a new building."

For more information, contact us at inforequest@envistacorp.com.

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