Question: Washburn Guitars produces a wide variety of acoustic and electric guitars with annual sales of 50,000 guitars totaling $40 million in revenues. Washburn is a Chicago-based company that has been in business for over 123 years. Its workforce consists of craftsmen who love music, play music, and value the craft and design of each guitar. The tone of a guitar comes from the porosity of its wood. Guitar bodies are made from mahogany, alder, poplar, and swamp ash. The necks are made of mahogany and maple. It takes five board feet to make a body and three board feet to make a neck. The production process at Washburn starts when an idea for a new product is given to its Auto CAD engineer. He uses computeraided-drafting (CAD) software and designs a mock-up of the new product. The drawing allows the production people to look at certain aspects of the guitar and make sure that things like string alignment and string angle are properly positioned.
Once the drawing is approved, the wood is selected, cut, and reduced to the desired size and thickness. The wood is then sent to CNC machines, a computerassisted manufacturing device, which cut out the various parts of the guitar to the specifications provided by the CAD software. Anything that the auto CAD draws can be automatically cut by these machines. Once the CNC machine cuts the guitar parts, the parts are moved to various departments for body sanding, neck assembly, and painting. After being painted, the guitar is then sent to the dry room for two weeks, after which it is leveled and then buffed. It then goes to a subassembly bench where the strings are put on, the instrument is tuned up, and the finished guitar is ultimately played to make sure that it is within Washburn's quality standards. After being played and tune tested, the guitar gets a quality tag that is signed by all the department heads. The keys to quality for a guitar are form, fit, and function. You can have the best-looking guitar on the market, but if it doesn't play and sound good, guitar enthusiasts will not be interested in purchasing it and this news will travel throughout the music industry very quickly. Two major changes improved Washburn guitar quality substantially in recent years.
First, it hired Gil Vasquez as production manager. He had been manufacturing low-volume, high-end guitars for big stars at Baker Guitars on the West Coast. The second change came when Washburn acquired Parker Guitar, a company founded by an aviation engineer that also caters to high-end customers. Parker's production approach injected some quality influences into Washburn's processes, and Washburn's production approach added some volume efficiencies to Parker's processes. Thus, the acquisition improved both companies. Washburn knew when it acquired Parker that it would have to uphold Parker's outstanding quality controls and it did. Gil Vasquez was a major contributor in improving production quality through his relentless pursuit of quality improvements. Washburn also has a custom shop where it makes more expensive specialty guitars primarily for high-profile musicians and performers. Customers can request specific colors, special woods, unique components, and the highest-grade accessories. A production model guitar, on the other hand, has no variations. If twelve pieces are made in a run, all the guitars are going to be the same.
They're all going to come from the same run of wood, be the same color, and have the same features. The custom shop has grown from eight to sixty-five people in just two years. Production of custom guitars has gone from sixty to three hundred guitars during this period. Signature models are used to increase the appeal of a guitar among aficionados. It makes a statement about the guitar's quality, and it strengthens Washburn's relationship with rock stars such as Dan Donegan (the lead guitarist for the Disturbed rock band) and his millions of fans. Such stars want an instrument that is unique to them and doesn't look like every other guitar that can be found in music stores around the country. In fact, Dan Donegan helped with the design of the Maya Pro DD75, which includes a range of features and high-end components that fit his specific needs. This signature model requires additional hand crafting and care, which can be challenging to a high through-put production facility like Washburn's. Once the design of a signature model is finalized, the production process is comparable to the process described earlier except that Washburn's craftsmen are especially motivated to do their best for a high-profile guitarist like Donegan. Washburn knows that to be considered a quality producer, it has to be associated with quality users of its products.18 For more information about this company, go to www .washburn.com.
1. Using the concepts of focus, magnitude of change, and number of production processes, discuss Washburn's manufacturing conversion process.
2. How would you describe Dan Donegan's role in the production process that produced his signature guitar?
3. What form of plant layout does Washburn employ in the manufacture of its guitars?