BorgWarner Lean 3P Workshop Program
BorgWarner Lean Workshop Program
Multiple Plants, One Repeatable Method, Millions in Capital Avoided
THE CHALLENGE
Designing Lines Before They're Built
As BorgWarner launched new manufacturing programs for multiple OEM customers across its global plant network, each program needed a line designed for the lowest viable capital, labor, and footprint without giving up capacity or quality. The recurring question behind every launch was the same: Could a disciplined line-design process hit target volumes for meaningfully less capital than the baseline plan already on the table?
THE APPROACH
Learning to See, Solve, and Tell
BA Science's Mike "Ozzie" Oswald facilitated week-long 3P (Production Preparation Process) workshops across BorgWarner plants in Mexico, the US, and Germany, covering product lines from ignition coils to EGR modules to engine valves. Each workshop ran on a Scrum/Sprint cadence structured around three phases: Learning to See, Learning to Solve, and Learning to Tell. Teams mapped the current and future state of each line, ran an eight-wastes waste walk against the baseline process, and sized capacity against takt time using detailed machine and operator cycle-time analysis. Cross-functional teams then designed the line station by station: process flows, equipment and work-holding sketches, control plans, changeover, and materials planning. They captured same-week quick wins (just-do-its) alongside the longer-term design work.
CAPITAL REDUCTION
From Operating Principles to Options
One of the clearest examples played out at BorgWarner's Ramos, Mexico, plant in July 2017, targeting the valve assembly line supporting Ford's Cyclone engine platforms. The engagement opened with a one-day workshop to establish the "Ramos Operating System": 56 guiding principles in total, spanning equipment design, logistics and supply chain, and operations, all developed directly by Ramos's own leadership team. These principles then drove a three-day capital-reduction workshop, where a cross-functional team of operators, maintenance staff, engineers, and local continuous-improvement leaders evaluated how to consolidate three existing lines (two Flex lines and a Pentastar line) running at OEE rates between 54% and 83%.
The team landed on four viable options, each consolidating different product families onto fewer lines, with one option proposing to source the throttle body to another BorgWarner plant altogether, freeing up eight machines. Working from baseline capital of $4.36 million, the recommended path trimmed the number to $3.25 million while also reducing operator headcount per line, all without giving up the capacity needed to cover contracted customer volumes through at least 2022.
A FOUR-TEAM SPRINT
Cross-Functional Solutions
In September 2017, a similar workshop ran at BorgWarner's Dixon facility, this time aimed at motor assembly, rotor assembly, intermediate housing, and output housing. Nineteen team members, spanning engineering, materials planning, quality, program management, maintenance, and shop-floor operators, worked the same Learning to See / Learning to Solve / Learning to Tell arc: one day of foundational training on the eight wastes, takt time, and cycle-time breakdown, two days in which four teams each developed seven line-design concepts complete with equipment sketches and station-by-station cycle times, and a final day spent turning the strongest concepts into firm capital and labor estimates.
The week's honest self-assessments said as much about the culture shift as the deliverables did. One participant's workshop-closing observation stuck with the group: "Anything that doesn't change fit, form, or function is waste." The event closed with a concrete punch list the team could execute.
RESULTS ACROSS THE PROGRAM
A Method That Scaled
Across all six workshops, the program delivered more than $15 million in capital and cost savings. The largest single win came at BorgWarner's Ludwigsburg, Germany plant, where new-line capital was cut roughly in half using the same 3P method proven in Ramos and Dixon. What made the program repeatable was that each workshop built the process directly alongside the plant's own cross-functional team, so the habit of designing for value outlasted the week Ozzie was on-site.
