Trend showcases its ‘lean manufacturing’ operation

On 4 November 13 branch members, as guests of Trend, were given a guided tour by production manager Mark Chaplin. They were shown how over 1,200 product variants are manufactured using ACI (automatic component insertion) and ATE (automatic test equipment) machines. On average 10,000 surface mount components per hour are placed in printed circuit boards. Via a team approach, the factory team has identified and eliminated wasteful and inefficient practices, resulting in a “lean manufacturing” operation that has not only reduced manufactured product lead times to four days, but also “virtually eliminated” manufacturing defects. During the visit, John O’Leary, Trend’s healthcare specialist, gave a presentation on the effectiveness of a BEMS in reducing energy and carbon emissions in healthcare buildings. His talk covered new developments from Trend including IQ Eye – an “intelligent support system”, and iMAT2 – an energy monitoring service.