CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

• PPM’s management understands and is proactive in assisting its OEM customers in meeting challenging total cost targets. PPM’s multifunctional teams meets regularly with its major accounts’ operating management to evaluate ideas and implement operations improvement plans. All data is shared openly and the benefits of implemented improvements are also shared.
  
  
• PPM management will “coinvest” with the customer to define and implement ideas that benefit both PPM and its customer(s), whether these be cost or working capital improvements, or both.
  • For example, PPM invested $5,000 to improve the functioning of a customer’s mold, improving cycle time and reducing material usage. The resulting savings were and continue to be shared between PPM and the customer.
    
  • PPM has proactively advised a major account for over 10 years on operating improvements to approximately 70 injection molded components, provided by PPM daily, feeding the customer’s requirements via a Kanban system. The cost reduction on this “market basket” of parts through mold improvements and modifications, material substitutions, and joint effort part redesigns, is well over 20% since initial production.
    
• PPM has proactively worked with significant accounts on Kaizen projects, Value Stream Mapping, and other operating improvement oriented programs.