Manufacturing Process at Big Ass fans

On Tuesday March 9, 2010, a local manufacturing facility hosted an ASQ meeting, where we were privileged to tour their facility. Big Ass fans, which is a local company, has grown and expanded exponentially within the last decade, despite the economy. It was list in the top 5 places to work in Lexington last year.

It is always interesting to view how different companies incorporate the newest technology within their process. Big Ass Fans process is very similar to other manufacturing facilities in Kentucky, they design, assembly, and tests in the Ky facilities, but outsource allot of the work to other suppliers. The actual fan blades are outsourced to a supplier that are experts in extrusions, they have the knowledge and technology to perform this process at a much lower cost than Big Ass Fans. The Lexington based manufacturer has three areas of concentration for their facility. The first is the design of new models, (to grow their business), this is one of the reasons for their continued success over the past decade. They assembly all the purchased parts as well as internally made components,an effort to keep the design confidential. The last area of focus is their testing, this is to confirm that their design has meet the design intent, and to assure all safety requirements have been obtained as well.