Center helps firms boost efficiency
Nonprofit analyzes business processes, offers solutions
By Tammy Cilione
Poughkeepsie Journal
FISHKILL — When the 59-year-old Kingston business Fala Technologies Inc. wanted to streamline its day-to-day operations, it tried to become more efficient on its own. The effort failed.
"We've tried it in the past and haven't had great success with it," Fala's operations manager, Jaime Chorvas, said of enhancing areas including quality, cost, delivery and eliminating waste and making continuous improvement possible. This process is lean manufacturing.
Since March, Fala has been under the advisement of Hudson Valley Technology Development Center.
The nonprofit is a resource center for manufacturers, technology-based companies, inventors, entrepreneurs and other Hudson Valley businesses.
To help Fala achieve its goals, the center is using value stream mapping, which falls under the umbrella of lean manufacturing. Value stream mapping is a method of illustrating a product's production from its current state to where the business wants it to go.
Robert P. Winrow, field service director for the center, said the purpose of value stream mapping includes eliminating waste time.
"We don't have a product to sell. We visit to identify what a business' needs are and identify potential solutions to implement to solve their unique problems," Winrow said.
The center charges a fixed price for its services and all information is kept strictly confidential, Winrow said. Phyllis Levine of the center said projects are priced according to their size and scope.
Though the center helps larger businesses, its focus is on businesses with 75 workers or fewer, he said.
The center is one of 10 Regional Technology De-velopment Centers in New York funded cooperatively through the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research and the National Institute of Standards & Technology.
Fala's owner, Frank Falatyn, said it is important for his employees to know how to run Fala Technologies because he is working on other business projects.
"Hudson Valley Technology Development Center was my source for training people and bringing them up through the ranks," Falatyn said, " I've turned my company 100 percent over to my people, and that only happened recently."
Falatyn said in the past he has sent all of his employees to training to acquire these skills.
"You learn it in school, but to apply it is another level," Falatyn said.
Falatyn said it's the center's hands-on approach that makes incorporating lean manufacturing into workers' daily tasks possible.
"This is where you take what you have learned and apply it to a specific task," Falatyn said.
