The Overall Idea of the Year Winner was a glass sealer tip submitted by Anthony Blamer, Steven Augenstein, and John Ayer of Honda of America. The winners are seen here with LaVerne Holland, chair, EIA Conference and Adrienne Finley-Plummer, judge of the Idea of the Year (at the podium).
The group looked at the problem of water leaks around window openings at the start/stop point of the sealer bead, then redesigned the sealer application tip. The result was an 85% reduction in leaks and downtime and 100% reduction in failures at the dealer. Here's how the idea came about, in their own words:
We were experiencing an excessive amount of water leaks around the fixed window openings due to the poor quality of starVstop (knit) point of the glass sealer bead. To countermeasure these water leaks we wanted to redesign the tip that was being used to apply the sealer.
After three different designs were tested we found that the final design worked best. This design uses a leading edge opening half the area of the trailing edge. This design showed improvements over all other designs.
In addition to the new sealer tip, a mastic regulator was installed to better control the flow rate of the sealer and eliminate the pulsing created by the Johnstone piston pump.
How does your company recognize outstanding ideas that save money, increase productivity and enhance your profitability? The Employee Involvement Association has an awards program that provides validation for your company's best ideas. For more information on EIA's awards program go to http://www.eianet.org/awards. The competition opens in January 2008 for ideas successfully implemented in 2007. The award entry deadline is April 30, 2008.. but it's not too early to start thinking about this now!
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