ETM Manufacturing, a fast-growing sheet metal manufacturer, will join with customer, HTP Inc. and supplier, Ryerson, to test the effect of lean manufacturing strategies and practices on the extended supply chain. The company, which has used lean manufacturing principles to streamline its own operations and improve quality and delivery since 2009, initiated the Extended Value Stream Compression Project to demonstrate the significant effect that lean manufacturing principles can have on all partners in the supply chain, when working in concert.

Lean manufacturing models—employed by many of the world’s largest and most well-known manufacturers, including Toyota and John Deere—place a great deal of focus on improving the extended supply chain. Making efficiency improvements in material and information flows “outside the four walls” offers many advantages in lowering costs and creating environments where innovation accelerates. Historically, employing these strategies in partnership with customers and suppliers has proven to be more challenging as organizations are stretched thin, and traditional trust mechanisms within supply chains are more difficult to sustain.

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