Manufacturing Engineering

Is your facility layout working against your operation?

As manufacturers grow, chances are they've focused on adding machines and capabilities while movement efficiency has been put to the wayside. Gallian Engineering evaluates facility layout and production flow to determine how your operation can be structured more efficiently.

How We Approach It

We analyze how people, materials, equipment, and work move through your facilities. We look for unnecessary travel, cross-traffic, duplicated capabilities, underutilized space, and opportunities to create a more efficient production flow.

Example

A manufacturer was operating three separate shops in three different cities. We consolidated the operations into a single manufacturing facility and redesigned the shop layout around production flow. The result was a 15% reduction in overtime, 10% reduction in labor requirements, and 30% increase in overall production capacity.

Is your product designed to be manufactured efficiently?

A design can meet every functional requirement and still create unnecessary manufacturing cost. Gallian Engineering evaluates designs with the manufacturing process in mind, identifying opportunities to improve manufacturability without compromising performance.

How We Approach It

We look beyond the drawing to understand how the part will actually be produced. We evaluate geometry, tolerances, material, tooling, setups, machining strategy, and assembly requirements to identify opportunities to simplify production and reduce cost.

Example

A customer was burning through cutting inserts while milling a square cavity. Our review found that the cavity walls did not need to be perfectly perpendicular to the top surface. Adding a 2° wall angle improved chip evacuation and coolant flow, reducing insert consumption while maintaining the functional requirements of the part.

Do you know where your production capacity is actually being lost?

Manufacturers often know they need more capacity before they know what is actually limiting production. Gallian Engineering evaluates equipment, labor, processes, scheduling, and production flow to identify the constraints affecting throughput.

How We Approach It

We analyze actual production requirements against available machine and labor capacity, looking at cycle times, utilization, bottlenecks, downtime, changeovers, and production flow. This helps determine whether you actually need more equipment or labor, or whether existing capacity is simply being used inefficiently.

When additional equipment or tooling is actually needed, we leverage our network of machine and tooling companies to help you find the right solution. We cut through the sales pitch and help you make the decision based on what your operation actually needs.

Example

A manufacturer was considering purchasing a $200,000 CNC lathe to increase production capacity based on complaints from the shop foreman. Gallian Engineering reviewed the products, processes, and equipment utilization and determined that a new lathe wasn't the answer. The real constraint was a bottleneck in receiving and vendor coordination that was delaying part setup.

Can your newest employee do the job correctly without asking your most experienced employee?

As manufacturers grow, tribal knowledge can become a major constraint. The people who know how to do the job correctly are often the same people being pulled in ten different directions to train everyone else. Gallian Engineering helps turn that knowledge into clear, repeatable processes that can be taught and followed consistently.

How We Approach It

We work with your experienced employees to document how work is actually performed, identify the critical steps and decisions that aren't captured on the drawing or router, and turn that knowledge into practical work instructions and standardized processes.

The goal isn't to create a 40-page procedure nobody will read. It's to give employees the information they need, where they need it, in the simplest way possible. Pictures, videos, and short written instructions.

Example

A manufacturer was growing quickly but relied heavily on the shift supervisor to oversee new hires and their quality of work. This resulted in inconsistent training and inconsistent results between shifts. New employees were learning different methods depending on who trained them. Gallian Engineering worked with the team to capture the critical knowledge and standardize the process into clear, usable work instructions, making training more consistent and reducing the reliance on tribal knowledge.