THE CHALLENGE MacKay Manufacturing is a high-mix, low-volume job shop in Spokane, Wash. The majority of the products it manufactures are medical and aerospace components made of steel. Years ago, as the economy slowed and competition ramped up, MacKay was determined to practice lean manufacturing, but knew it needed to change its manpower, machines and methods to do so. Its goal was to reduce setups, since it was MacKay’s biggest time-waster. The rst step was to go to several organizations known for their lean thinking to learn about how they implemented lean. The next step was replacing its stand-alone vertical machining centers with high-performance horizontal machining centers. Next, it wanted to add production eciency through a exible machining cell. All of these things would help

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