Eliminating waste and loss at every turn

Southwest Fabricators has made a commitment to embrace Lean Manufacturing principles in each facet of its enterprise. Lean Manufacturing involves the relentless elimination of waste in every business process – from order entry to manufacturing and from assembly to shipping and billing. Our commitment to Lean Manufacturing ensures that high quality products - in the correct quantity, at the right time – are delivered to the customer at the lowest possible cost.
In our quest for continuous process improvement we perform regular kaizen events using the following Lean Manufacturing tools:

Value-stream mapping
We map every process in the ordering, fabrication and delivery of your product. We identify and eliminate processes that add no value to the product, with the goal of reducing the cycle time and production cost.

Customer Pull
We make only what you want, when you want it, for delivery when you need it. Excess raw material and finished-product inventory represents unnecessary costs that we will not pass on to our customer.

Continuous flow
When we receive the “pull signal” (customer order), we begin the process that passes on just what is needed to each successive production step. We don't batch product, nor do we stop, until your product is out the door and on its way to you.

Standard Work
Standard Work helps us to find the optimum combination of manpower, machines and materials to ensure that a process is completed the same way every time with minimum waste and at the customer's demand.

Quick Change-over
Lean Manufacturing uses small quantities of controlled inventory. This means smaller and more frequent production runs. Quick Change-over is a systematic approach to reducing non-productive machine setup time (SMED & setup reduction), resulting in flexible productivity and shorter delivery times.

Mistake-proofing
Mistake-proofing helps us to prevent defective parts from being passed from one manufacturing process to the next. This saves time, reduces costs and gets us closer to our goal of zero defects.

Total Productive Maintenance
TPM is an ongoing process that ensures our production machinery is available to make your parts when you need them. TPM ensures the efficiency, longevity and optimum condition of our production machinery.

5S / Management By Sight
Sort – Set in order – Scrub & Shine – Standardize – Sustain. This systematic approach lays the foundation for a Lean Manufacturing facility, from the shop floor to the offices. Dirt, clutter and excessive inventory are removed from the workplace. Only what is needed is left, within easy reach. There is no wasted time searching for the right tools or right materials.