The Challenge

903 Coatings faced severe production bottlenecks caused by an unreliable workforce and a disorganized facility. High turnover meant knowledge was never retained, while a chaotic shop layout—cluttered with idle inventory and broken equipment—forced staff to spend hours locating basic tools, resulting in potential inconsistent quality from hired help on complex, custom projects. This required the business owner to work on every single project himself, constricting operations.

The Solution

We proposed a systematic operational overhaul to transition the shop from reactive labor to a high-efficiency production model.

• Standardized Hiring Pipeline Replaced ad-hoc recruitment with a rigorous vetting and onboarding process. This included a structured training phase where new hires master the full spectrum of shop output—from automotive rims to large-scale industrial tanks—before advancing to custom work.
• Automated Rim Preparation Engineered a high-throughput, "push-button" blasting solution to eliminate the manual labor intensity of wheel rim restoration, reducing man-hours per unit while ensuring consistent surface quality.
• Facility Optimization Developed a comprehensive "Lean Shop" layout. This redesign eliminated floor clutter, organized material staging for rapid retrieval, and established a preventative maintenance schedule to ensure all tools and machinery remained fueled, functional, and accessible.

The Outcome

This multi-layered approach was designed to transform the shop’s culture and output. By professionalizing the hiring process, the company would retain skilled staff capable of handling high-end custom jobs. Simultaneously, the shop redesign and automated preparation machinery were engineered to turn unpredictable, manual-heavy workflows into a predictable, high-margin production environment.

KPIs (2026)