The Company
Dan River Inc. was founded in 1882 in Danville, Virginia. The company is a leading manufacturer of textile products for a multitude of uses and applications. In addition to manufacturing and marketing a coordinated line of high quality home fashions fabrications, Dan River also produces a broad range of value-added woven apparel fabrics and specialty coated yarns and fabrics for engineered applications.

The Problem
As a domestic textile producer, Dan River's Apparel Fabrics division is facing major competitive stress brought on by the intrusion of low-cost, foreign manufacturers. Having a high quality, innovative product offering is not enough in today's deep-discount, global marketplace. To stay competitive, Dan River has sought to improve their manufacturing processes so that they could more readily compete with overseas manufacturers. As a result, Dan River's Apparel Fabrics division has decided to implement cost-saving lean manufacturing techniques to reduce the impact of cheap imports.

The Response
Bob Beecy, Dan River's Senior Director of Planning, became familiar with lean manufacturing through his company supported involvement in APICS (American Production and Inventory Control Society), and decided to attend a VPMEP-lead lean manufacturing workshop to gain a basic understanding of lean terminology and techniques. He learned of this workshop through the marketing flyers routinely sent to businesses in the VPMEP's service area.

Recognizing the importance of getting key employees to "buy-in" to lean manufacturing concepts, VPMEP team leader, Denis Klisz suggested to Bob that Dan River's Apparel Fabrics' management take part in an in-house Principles of Lean Manufacturing Workshop With Live Simulation. The workshop would provide management with an overview of lean techniques and examples of how they can be implemented by participating in a thorough simulation exercise. Through the workshop, the management of the Apparel Fabrics division began the process of developing associates within the company with the knowledge to successfully implement lean manufacturing techniques. The workshop also served as an excellent lead-in for the lean transformation at Dan River.

The next step in the process involved bringing in a VPMEP team to administer the Lean Assessment Tool, to locate the areas in which improvements could be made at the Dan River Apparel Fabrics division and to place a value on those improvements. Laura Rathburn, Team Leader, and Ken Martin, Project Manager, led the team for VPMEP. They spent two days at each of the three Dan River Apparel Fabrics facilities to observe and collect data on the existing processes using the Lean Assessment Tool. The findings of the assessment were then analyzed, tabulated and summarized by VPMEP's project team. These findings were then used to benchmark the facilities against "World Class" lean companies and as a basis for outlining a plan to be used to develop and justify a future project.

The Results
The Principles of Lean Manufacturing 101 workshop proved to be an important factor in developing management awareness of the benefits of "going lean." Furthermore, the workshop focused the desire of management to increase the competitiveness of Dan River via lean tools and techniques. Management for the Apparel Fabrics division specifically identified the VPMEP’s lean manufacturing workshop in helping them to understand the scope, opportunities and challenges involved in implementing lean. This led the group to indicate that education, if required by an outside source, would be contracted through VPMEP.

The Lean Assessment Tool assisted the Apparel Fabrics management team in quantifying the potential of lean implementation at over $4 million at their facilities. Finally, by working with VPMEP’s staff, the division’s management was made aware of a possible funding source to assist their upcoming lean implementation projects.

Management’s Comment
Bob Beecy states: "The Virginia Philpott Manufacturing Extension Program helped me to transfer a body of knowledge to the management of Dan River's Apparel Fabrics Division in an easily absorbed, hands-on format that facilitated our start on the journey to lean. We would not be as far along with our implementation had we not sought the assistance of VPMEP."

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