Bucking up to go lean: Buck Co. Inc., Quarryville, Pa., began a significant expansion six months ago, and its experience with lean manufacturing helped pave the way to increased capacity.

Just passed the horses and buggies of Amish country in southern Lancaster County, Pa., and right before the city of Lancaster rises out of the hills, sits Buck Co. Inc., a primarily ferrous metalcaster with traditional roots and modern aspirations.

"A couple of years ago, we decided we were going to make our nonferrous side grow," said President Dick McMinn.

"We had the opportunity to be successful in obtaining new work. Previously, we didn't pursue it hard enough."

Now, Buck Co. is pursuing nonferrous business with relish, adding three pieces of equipment and five furnaces to its aluminum and brass operation in the last six months. Today, it is conducting twice as much nonferrous business than it was just over a year ago. Before increasing that capacity, though, the company planners were able to draw on something few other metalcasters have the luxury of the experiences of their iron division.

Lean on Me

Buck Company is a middle- to large-run jobbing facility, but what defines its niche is versatility. With more than 300 customers, Buck is one of the few metalcasters in the nation that pours both ferrous and nonferrous castings under the same roof. It primarily supplies castings for agriculture, railroad, hoses and couplings, and mining, but it also dips into the valves, fittings, construction, and tools and hardware markets.

With so many different jobs on the floor at any one time, the administration at Buck Co. decided to institute lean manufacturing two years ago. While at first it seemed that lean wouldn't work for a job shop, Matt Sullivan, vice president of manufacturing and quality, said that's where it has the most success.

"With lean manufacturing, you're able to adjust and adapt your process quickly, and for a job shop, that's imperative," he said.

Buck decided to take a divide-and-conquer approach to going lean. They started with the finishing processes, splitting the operation into three value streams (VS)--ductile iron became VS1, malleable iron was VS2 and nonferrous was called VS3.

"The finishing room is where all the bottlenecks always happened," Sullivan said. "The metalcasters could always bury them. After we put the finishing cell in the iron foundry, there were significantly less Saturdays that they were working."

Going lean, or creating a cell, frees up those bottlenecks and improves flow by eliminating waste of any kind. The first step is to move all of the related equipment into close proximity (such as degating, grinding and re-grinding machines), but that's only the beginning. The idea is to find balance by moving parts through the production line in a continuous motion without creating a stockpile, which requires a constant reshuffling of duties for the guys on the floor.

"We have always been individualized, so we had to sell our people on

balancing resources," Sullivan said. "We needed to stop operating as individual islands of opportunity and focus on overall product flow. Instead of burying the guy downstream, you stop what you're doing and go help him."

By improving product flow, Buck also made it easier to determine efficiency on a daily basis. Gone were the overwhelming piles of parts that made it difficult to tell whether progress had been made. In the ductile iron finishing room, Buck saw a reduction in departmental lead times from 14.5 to 5.5 days.

With that great success, the plan was to make VS2 lean, as well. But there was a more pressing concern on the horizon.

"We knew we were going to put this new equipment in, so we had to turn our guns on nonferrous," Sullivan said.

Fattening Up

Buck increased its brass melt capacity by 20%, adding two 3,000-lb. induction furnaces in July 2006. The aluminum melt capacity increase bests that number.

One 2,300-lb. and two 1,300-lb. dip-out furnaces doubled Buck's aluminum capabilities by August. Now, five furnaces are devoted to various grades of aluminum--three for 356, one for 319 and one for 535 Al-Mag.

All that new metal had to go somewhere, so Buck also brought in new molding equipment. A 30-year-old automatic mold machine was replaced by a new matchplate molding line with a 20 x 24-in. flask size, and a new handling system indexes the 90 to 100 molds it pumps out per hour. Together, with the addition of a new muller, Buck increased its mold capacity 25% per eight-hour shift.

The equipment installation is not quite finished, still. Since this time last year, Buck has increased the weight of its largest aluminum casting from 45 to 100 lbs. To help manipulate the cope and drag halves necessary to mold these larger pieces, Buck brought in a 31 x 61-in. Roto-Lift. While the mold handler is not operational yet, McMinn said that Buck will have it running in October of this year.

The ferrous side of the metalcasting facility wasn't completely ignored, either. Buck streamlined its molding ability by bringing in a new 16 x 20-in. matchplate line. But the focus, for now, remains on the other side of the plant.

"With foundries continuing to close, we believe there is a growing need for nonferrous castings," said

McMinn, though he also says that their expansion wasn't intended to crush other metalcasters. "Your competition makes you better. We're an industry where we've got to help our competition in the worldwide marketplace through technology."

Lean Overseen

With the combination of lean manufacturing and new equipment, the organizational structure of Buck Company has changed considerably.

"When I first got here, I did a job that doesn't even exist anymore," said Mike Fischer, a special projects participant who exemplifies the work force at Buck. Fischer spends his days bouncing from project to project, balancing the personnel resources around the metalcasting facility.

In some cases, though, the equipment allows for fewer adaptations than the principles of lean manufacturing. The new aluminum furnaces are positioned on the original melt deck, along which runs the mold handling systems. Since the additional furnaces are dip-out furnaces, metalcasters hand ladle from furnace to sprue just as they always have done.

The new automatic molding machine, too, has been integrated seamlessly. Adapter plates can be used to make existing patterns compatible with the new mold machine. Both 20 x 24-in. and 14 x 19-in. plates can be made to fit into the 20 x 24 in. machine with one of two different plates.

"We couldn't ask our customers to incur the costs of going to a new molding line from the old machine," said technical manager Bill Jackson. "We can't go back to them and ask them to pay for all new tooling. With adapter plates, we are trying to make what we already have work. We didn't have to go out and make a bunch of new patterns."

Leaning Toward the Future

Of course, there have been challenges--"it's been hectic here at first," said Steve Ward, the nonferrous facility superintendent. The process of making the malleable iron division lean had to be put off, and now customers generally expect more precision out of Buck.

But early indicators show positive results. Two years ago, nonferrous castings made up 11% of the company's business. In the year to date, it has grown to 26% of sales. And if the success of the finishing cell in VS1 is any indication, VS3 should have no problem keeping up with the accelerated pace. After only about two months, the ductile iron finishing room began to realize a 2% per month improvement in product flow. Sullivan believes that is world class, and since then, they have continued to increase efficiency. Over the last two years, VS1 has reduced labor hours by 20% per ton.

Change, it seems, simply has not taken Buck Company or its employees off guard. "Buck Company believes in capital improvement on a regular basis," McMinn said. "We make the money to do it, and I believe that's what has helped us be successful. We invest continuously."

The 19 Months that Changed Buck

In the last six months, equipment additions have helped Buck Co. Inc., Quarryville, Pa., move from an iron caster that dabbled in nonferrous castings to a significant aluminum and brass producer. But the ball really started rolling at the start of 2005. Here's when it all happened.

February 2005   Began Manufacturing
January 2006    Lean Manufacturing on Nonferrous
April 2006      Automatic Ferrous Mold Machine
May 2006        Two 1,300-lb. Aluminum Furnaces
July 2006       Two 3,000-lb. Brass Furnaces
August 2006     Automatic Non-Ferrous Mold
                Machine, Mold Handling System,
                2,300-lb. Aluminum Furnace
October 2006    31 x 61-in. Roto-Lift

Better Late Than Never

Buck Co. Inc., Quarryville, Pa., has had casting process modeling software at its disposal since 2004, but it didn't put it to use until late last year, adding to the rush of increased capability that it has gained in the last 15 months. And since the company develops or converts much of the tooling it works with in-house, that was no small addition.

"It has made us more technologically advanced," said technical manager Bill Jackson. "Back in the day, it was, 'that looks about fight.' Now, you may not be perfect, but you know you're very close."

For Buck's larger castings, which it only recently became capable of producing, the addition of the software has been critical. According to Jackson, they had no experience gating 50 to 100-lb. aluminum castings, and it would have been impossible for them to do so without it.

Buck Company Quarryville, Pennsylvania

Year Founded: 1951

Metals Cast: Austempered ductile iron, ductile iron, gray iron. malleable iron, aluminum, brass, bronze.

Casting Process: Green sand--horizontally parted molding.

Casting Range: Ounces to 100 lbs. Size: 220,000 sq. ft.

Monthly Melt: 6,000 tons.

Value-added: Engineering, pattern shop, heat treating, finishing, painting and material testing.

Employees: 400.