UniRac

UniRac's Lean Manufacturing drive has been recognized with a 2007 Progressive Manufacturing Award from Managing Automation. "We've already seen great dividends from this program with new levels of quality, cost, and delivery performance," said Richard P. Welch, UniRac's Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, who initiated the drive last fall.
"The rapidly growing solar industry provides us the opportunity to be proactive around this lean initiative and forward looking in its contributions to the company. We’re committed to a long term continuous program of improvement, not a one-shot or limited effort." Lean Manufacturing stresses systematic approaches to identifying and eliminating waste and any activities that add no value to the product. It strives to continuously improve product flow based on the customer's "pull-signal" demand. An example is "just in time" delivery of materials via a supplier-managed inventory process. As a result, the right materials are always on hand to fill orders.