Fountain Powerboats to adopt Toyota Production System
WASHINGTON, N.C. – Boat builder Fountain Powerboat Industries, Inc. (AMEX:FPB) has engaged consultant Samuel R. McPherson to implement the Toyota Production System (TPS) in its manufacturing facilities, it reported in a statement today.
McPherson has over 24 years of experience in driving organizational cultural change and lean manufacturing, according to the boat builder.
“We invested over $500,000 in the restructuring of our manufacturing facilities for increased capacity and optimization of production efficiencies during fiscal 2005,” commented Fountain Powerboats CEO and President Reginald M. Fountain, Jr. “Our manufacturing process is labor intensive and we believe that the implementation and adoption of TPS will provide best manufacturing practices and eliminate waste, while improving productivity and efficiencies in our manufacturing process which will in turn reduce our cost of sales and drive our gross profit margins.”
“We are confident that by implementing the practices of Lean Manufacturing the resulting culture of operations will continue to improve the margin percentages from our manufacturing operations and strengthen our fiscal results,” added Fountain Powerboats Executive Vice President David Knight.
The Toyota Production System is the framework and philosophy organizing manufacturing facilities and the interaction of these facilities with the suppliers and customers. The main goal of the TPS is to eliminate seven types of waste: defects, overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory, motion and over processing, according to the boat builder. Toyota was able to greatly reduce costs using the TPS, and due to its success, many of these methods have been copied by other manufacturing companies.
Mr. McPherson is a senior Lean-Six Sigma Enterprise and public sector consultant responsible for providing operations, enterprise, extended enterprise level Lean and Lean-Six Sigma, Shingo Manufacturing consulting, training and product development for commercial, state and government clients within the state of North Carolina.
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