Xtreme Tower Products, Inc. (XTP) is a cutting edge wakeboard tower manufacturer that furnishes OEM specific products direct to the OEM wakeboard boat manufacturer market. Protomet Corporation and XTP have teamed to provide innovative products to satisfy this demanding market.

Recently, XTP approached Protomet to develop a Kitting and Kanban system focused on one line of wakeboard tower products. As Protomet furnished the machined components to XTP, there were 60+ part numbers in this particular product line. XTP wanted to be able to receive a kit of parts specific to a particular wakeboard tower. Protomet engineers put together model specific kits and were able to reduce the number of part numbers from 60+ to 12 different tower models. A typical kit is shown in Figure 1.

The second major benefit was a reduction in inventory. As shown in Figure 2, to track the individual parts numbers and their respective kit assignments, a Kitting and Kanban system was developed.

The third major benefit was to reduce the lead time from 15 days to 2 days. As shown in Figure 3, kits are staged and shipped on a weekly basis. This reduced the XTP work in process inventory by approximately $50,000.

XTP is the largest wakeboard tower manufacturer in the United States and is continually striving to be at the top of the wakeboard game. For more information, please check out their website at www.xtremetowerproducts.com.