Pride Neon Lights Up Lean

Results

Increased output without adding additional floor space

Improved communication and efficiencies

Improved on-time deliveries and installations

The company developed a continuous improvement mindset

Testimonial

“Don Cuperus with MTS has been a pleasure to work with and has helped us improve our processes, systems, and workflow. The Lean manufacturing classes our employees attended have been invaluable and have provided us with a continuous improvement mindset.”

- Dick Menke, CEO

About

Pride Neon Signs has been making its customers’ visions come alive by delivering high quality, custom sign solutions for businesses, and office settings since 1947. George Menke Sr. originally launched the company with his brother-in-law as Pryde Signs. In 1949, George became the sole owner and renamed the company to Pride Neon Signs. The company remains family-owned and operated, and recently celebrated its 73^rd Anniversary with its 42 employees.

Pride Neon Signs has a regional reputation for innovation and quality through its service to its diverse, longstanding customer base. Its team of seasoned industry professionals excels at their craft and delight in delivering masterpieces carefully, designed, constructed, and installed to the customer’s unique specifications.

In July of 2017, Pride Neon purchased Signs Plus Graphics and expanded its product line to include vehicle graphics, wall murals, and small signage. Pride Neon prides itself in the products they deliver to their customers. From the details to the design, Pride Neon takes ownership for creating the best signs for their customers.

Challenge

Recently, Pride Neon’s growth started to slow and the company began to face some communication and scheduling challenges. To resolve these issues, the management team decided to hire South Dakota Manufacturing & Technology Solutions to create stronger internal processes and minimize errors.

Solution

Pride Neon has made big improvements to their operations. Take their shop floor, for example. Pride Neon went through a series of projects to reorganize their shop floor to optimize their workflow. They also worked to restructure their inventory and implemented 5S to their production floor to increase their efficiency and capacity. The group used Kanban as a Lean framework to increase their communication and transparency among the team. Opening up communication channels and creating new processes helped keep everyone updated on employee activities and schedules. Foursquare training equipped employees with an approach for making clear-cut, well-informed decisions. Pride Neon’s team is proud of the victories they have experienced and look forward to continuing to evolve on their Lean journey.