Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501200039
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
More automation and more highly skilled workers capable of performing a wider variety of jobs will take AMP Inc.'s Roanoke manufacturing plant into the 21st Century, plant managers say.
In January 2000, a visitor to the floor of the company's Hollins Road factory will find most manufacturing steps accomplished within product teams and the plant depending less on outside suppliers for parts. The plant's warehouse, managers said, will carry less inventory with supplies coming in the door just at the time they're needed.
The plant, which makes connector plugs and receptacles for computers and other electronic equipment, will become more responsive to customers needs, they said.
"You have to be in a position to say 'yes' [to customers]," said Danny Bobbitt, a plant team leader. "Service is how you gain market share."
Customers, Bobbitt said, expect top quality and service from all their suppliers. What AMP is trying to do with its new manufacturing methods, he said, is to make its service so good customers don't want to buy from anyone else.
AMP has changed its style of management over the past few years to Value Added Management, an Australian-modified form of the widely popular total-quality-management techniques that focus on continuous improvement in the way things are made.
VAM, the new management approach, is not a buzzword for today that will be gone tomorrow, Bobbitt said. It will become a permanent way of doing things that will result in more production, more productivity and better use of the existing facility.
By gathering people working on different stages of the same product into the same work area, workers can talk easily with one another about problems that hurt quality or hamper production. The need for others to pass along that information second-hand is eliminated, Bobbitt said.
The new way of management has increased respect among managers and hourly workers; it has eliminated the notion of "us and them," he said.
Another part of the Hollins Road plant's move toward less dependence on outside suppliers will be the addition of metal stamping and molding operations within the next year or two. Some of that work is currently being done at AMP's precision machine shop on Kimball Avenue in Roanoke. Equipment used there will be moved to Hollins Road. Higher skilled and better-paying jobs will come along with it.
Moving the machinery to Hollins Road also will free up some of the machinists for other work. They have been temporarily operating it at Kimball Avenue, said David Jones, plant manager there.
Jones' machine shop does in-house work for other AMP plants and is one of only three such company facilities in the United States. The shop, he said, contains some of the most advanced machine tools in the state, including a new $400,000 computerized metal-cutting machine that uses an electrified wire cutting tip to achieve precision results.
Going into the next century, the Kimball Avenue plant will work to keep on top of advances in metal-shaping machinery and to continuously improve its work force through training, Jones said. To make sure the shop has the workers it needs, Jones works with New River Community College and the county's Arnold R. Burton technology center.
AMP opened its Kimball Avenue operation in 1983 and its 75,000-square-foot plant on Hollins Road in 1985. An architectural study showed enough room on the Hollins Road property to double the size of the plant and its parking lot if needed, said Norm Welker, a manufacturing analyst at AMP.
The plant currently employs 409 people who work three shifts. But that could increase to as many as 600 by the year 2000, managers said. AMP, a multinational company based in Harrisburg, Pa., operates 93 plants worldwide and claims a 20 percent share of the $20-billion electrical connector market.
The company, overall, had record sales of $2.93 billion in the first nine months of 1994 and record earnings of $2.56 per share of common stock. The company said in its third quarter report that it expected to set more sales and earnings records in the fourth quarter.
Bobbitt said there will be more cross-training of the workers at the Hollins Road plant in the years ahead until workers have the skills to perform a variety of jobs. Every job that can be will be automated eventually, he said.
AMP's VAM version of continuous improvement incorporates the idea of occasional dramatic changes in the way things are done called "breakthroughs." One such event occurred last year when the Hollins Road plant was rearranged for manufacturing by production teams. The next such event will be the moving of molding and stamping operations into the plant to further enhance the company's ability to deal with quality issues.
Managers are now fully trained in the VAM concept and can train others without the help of outside trainers, Bobbitt said.
AMP, he said, wants to get better at tapping the creative abilities of its employees.
AMP INC.
THE COMPANY: AMP Inc., a multinational company, operates 93 plants worldwide and claims a 20 percent share of the $20-billion electrical connector market.
HEADQUARTERS: Harrisburg, Pa.
OPERATIONS: The company's Roanoke manufacturing plant on Hollins Road makes connector plugs and receptacles for computers and consumer electronic equipment.
ANNUAL SALES: The company, overall, had record sales of $2.93 billion in the first nine months of 1994.
EMPLOYEES: The Roanoke plant currently employs 409 people on three shifts.
by CNB