Art has worked in manufacturing his entire career because it paralleled his growing up on the family’s Wisconsin dairy farm. The cows had to be milked, the machines had to work, and revenue had to exceed costs.  

 

Early in his career, Art worked with an automotive supplier that had the chance to win the GM Suburban, Blazer and Crew Cab business. But because GM’s specifications were impossible to achieve profitably, senior engineers assigned Art to create the manufacturing plan as a simple learning experience. The plan’s contract price to GM (a) had to be competitive enough to defeat other bidders (b) absorb $15 million in new tooling with no help from GM and (c) yield worthwhile profit – the impossible. Case history “When fixation gives way to innovation” shows how Art did it. 

 

Art, a BSME graduate of Marquette University, completed his Lean and Six-Sigma blackbelt certification on his own at MSOE.  

 

Thereafter he received what he calls his “real education.” He worked with Freudenberg – a corporation heralded internationally as an innovator and implementer of the finest continuous improvement processes, which it deploys constantly in its mainstay business of the manufacture of rubber products. 

 

A. Stout & Associates’ ability to guarantee ROI comes from this same relentless drive, both learned and intuitive, to do more with what-is before looking to invest more human or machine assets. 

 

Industry Manufacturing Experience:  

• Assembly: Manual, Semi-Automatic and Automatic 

• Automotive 

• Electrical and Electronics 

• Fabricated Metal Products 

• Fabricated Structural Metal  

• Machining  

• Automotive Stamping  

• Welding-MIG, TIG, Resistance, Spot 

• Fabrics, Cut-N-Sew Finished Products 

• Food Processing 

• Furniture and Fixtures – Machining and Assembly 

• Industrial and Commercial Machinery, Water Pumping Systems, Industrial Ovens 

• Lumber and Wood Products – Machining and Assembly 

• Military 

• Medical 

• Rubber and Plastic – Compression, Injection, Rotational Molding, Over Molding, Machining 

 

Specialty Skills 

• Toyota Production System - Continuous improvement  

  • Single Piece Flow Cell 

  • Standardizing non-Standard Work  

  • Ergonomics 

  • Visual Scheduling 

  • Managing Daily Improvement 

  • Kaizen 

  • Set-up Reduction  

  • Value Stream Mapping  

  • 3P-Production Preparation Process 

  • Production Smoothing and Kanbans  

  • SPC and Poka-Yoke Error Proofing  

  • TPM Total Productive Maintenance  

• Six Sigma 

• BSME 

• GD&T, datuming 

• Tool, Fixturing and Machine design 

• Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering 

• Automation 

• Robotics 

• Cost Accounting