Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) is a vertically integrated renal care company, with its North American Durable Goods Division supplying more than 90% of the dialysis machines in the U.S. market. As one of the three active medical device sites within the Fresenius network, the Concord, CA site primarily manufactures hemodialysis (HD) machines, peritoneal dialysis (PD) cyclers, crit-line monitors, and dry concentrate mixing systems.
The Concord site experienced a significant increase in production line downtime in 2017, averaging 439 hours monthly for all assembly lines. The Tauber team partnered with FMCNA to determine root causes and reduce this costly downtime. The team used 5-Why analysis and determined that 84% of downtime was caused by component shortages. Of these shortages, 57% were due to inventory discrepancies between the physical stock and ERP inventory. The remaining 43% were due to ineffective communication with buyers, insufficient ERP safety stock, and supplier issues.
