Metal Flow

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Metal Flow Optimizes Quality Control Operations & Boosts Efficiency With On-Demand Labor

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Metal Flow is a precision metal stamping company renowned for its production of airbag and fuel system components. Due to the cyclical nature of demand in the automotive industry, the company sought a solution that would allow them to scale up and down in line with their production requirements, which can reach up to a million parts per day. Enter Veryable.

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Gaining The Ability To Rightsize in Real-Time

The Veryable team met Metal Flow's President, Kelly Springer, at a Lakeshore Advantage Meeting in Holland, MI. After discussing the operational benefits of flexibility and agility in the highly unpredictable automotive industry, Metal Flow jumped right in. Taking this approach has allowed Metal Flow to build a flexible extension of their workforce that can be deployed as needed, sometimes with less than a day's notice, which has greatly eased the operational strain of unplanned events such as last minute production changes or new projects. As Michael Hawkins, VP of Manufacturing at Metal Flow puts it, “Using Veryable lets us flex our labor quite a bit. With a flexible labor pool of about ten to fifteen percent with Veryable, we're able to do it day by day week, by week. If we’ve got a heavy workload off the presses or a heavy workload in quality, we're able to flex the labor quite a bit." He also added, “That flexibility and being able to get them back and have that repeatability, almost like an extension of the team."

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Accelerating Quality Control Inspections With Flexible Capacity

The benefits of operational agility become highly evident when quality inspections project arise. Rather than pulling skilled full-time employees away from their main duties, the Metal Flow team leverages on-demand operators to perform these inspectons, ensuring quality is maintained and that customer timelines are met no matter what. As Hawkins puts it, “With using Veryable and having the flexibility to bring people in and do those inspection criteria for maybe a week to three weeks to a couple of months, definitely helps out. Not having to pull people off of the regular production of the parts to do the inspections.”

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Additionally, due to the nature of the items they are producing, low defect rates are a non-negotiable. That's where the platform's meritocratic rating & review system helps. With complete visibility into operators' skills & experience and real unbiased ratings from other local businesses, the Metal Flow team is able to confidently select workers that are ready to hit the ground running.

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Optimizing Cost Per Unit With Operational Agility

Besides the benefits of operational agility and real-time response to demand, leveraging the Veryable model has resulted in significant bottom line impacts for Metal Flow. By avoiding the over/understaffing conundrum and being able to dynamically match headcount to demand daily, the company has significantly reduced labor waste and achieved a lower more constant cost structure.

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As Metal Flow's Director of Quality Ed Ploeg puts it, “Once you hire somebody, you're carrying that cost. I think from the labor standpoint of not over-hiring, that would give us our competitive edge. The key that we learned with Veryable was, that once we developed our labor pool, we were able to pull from those people when we needed them.”