3 Simple steps to getting started with XL800
July 27, 2010 by david.evanson
3 Simple steps to get your XL800 OEE System system working:
Step 1: Connect XL800 OEE System to your process
Step 2: Configure XL800 OEE System for immediate operation
Step 3: View your production in real-time
Designed for speed and simplicity – Provided ready-to-go with a standardised program
Customizable – not custom
When to coach and when to take control?
May 31, 2010 by david.evanson
Here’s an interesting question - “Can you implement a new process without telling people what to do?”
This question was specifically asked in a discussion around how to create the processes necessary to drive OEE in a factory. Specifically carrying out tactical OEE reviews using our LineView system.
I think it’s possible to get long term change through great leadership, and all great leaders have a time when they’re very directive and also know when to change that behaviour to be supportive. When they are directive it’s done in a way that creates certainty and safety to grow rather than fear and superiority.
For me there are 2 elements to the answer of this question:
- When to direct/coach/delegate to develop skill: refer to Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model
- How that approach comes across to the team – the energy that you show up with when directing/coaching
When to be directive: If we refer to the two right hand boxes of Blanchard’s leadership model below:
1. When an individual is low competence, D1, (not carried out this task before) then you can’t coach them on how to get better as they don’t have the basics. Therefore the role of the leader is to be extremely clear about the what, how, and why for the process to build initial skill. E.g. if you wanted to teach me to snowboard you can’t be non-directive in your teaching as I’ve never done it before, I need to be told how to stop/start/fall/use the lifts.
2. When I start to develop some competence and base ability you can then start to take a step back to coach and develop and to be less directive and tell. The coaching phase. A great leader is still very directive about the what and very supportive over the how but ultimately decisions sit with the leader.
How to be directive:
1. When implementing a new process, initially it needs to be very tell to get them started. The tell is around what they will do, how they will do it, when they will do it, and to a great extent on the why they will do it.
2. This tell could be done from a world of “I’m great I know everything you must do what I say”…..which will get resistance in most cases, especially if we have some negative associations with being taught “school-style”.
3. This tell could be done from a world of “here’s a way that I know will help you get the results that you want, let me show you how it works”…..which will get a different level of response
My goal when implementing change is to be very clear and directive in a way that feel supportive and helpful whilst also creating a massive need to implement.
Institute of Leadership and Management Endorsement
May 18, 2010 by david.evanson
I’ll start this blog with an apology as i’m purely announcing something that we’re really pleased about rather than talking about OEE!
Hot off the press - over the last year our team have been pulling together a leadership programme specifically targeted to help Operations professionals get even better results. We’re delighted to announce that this week the programme was endorsed by The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).
How often to Middle and Senior manufacturing managers get really great quality practical, hands on training and coaching support that they can implement immediately to improve performance? We believe that we’ve found an answer to this and are delighted to have it independently verified.
More news to follow soon…..!
Give me a lever!
April 13, 2010 by david.evanson
Archimedes is quoted as saying: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
If you want to improve factory OEE, let great real time data be your fulcrum and let your empowered and engaged team be your lever.
With a big enough reason you can move the world.
Give me a lever...
Breaking news!
April 12, 2010 by david.evanson
How often do you need to know your OEE or production numbers?
Daily?
Hourly?
Weekly?
Just read this great post by Seth Godin in which he asks “Does knowing about something ten seconds or ten minutes faster really matter? Is it worth the adrenalin?”
I suppose it depends on how many units per minute you’re running at!
- What frequency do you need to know your OEE numbers?
- Or more importantly your OEE Loss?
- What about your operators?
- Your front line managers?
- Your senior management?
How much time is spent gathering data manually when you want it at your fingertips in real time all the time?
Having instantly breaking data is essential in our world as every minute lost might be another 2000 units that have not been made.
But how do you get the right instant OEE data to the right people at the right time?
Call us and we’ll help you to achieve this!!!
Leading OEE from the front
April 12, 2010 by david.evanson
Randomly i was just drawn onto the BT website to sort out my phone bill and i came across an article on leadership that resonated with me and from which i’ve lifted the first paragraph below:
“Let’s be clear – leading is different from managing. Leaders have a vision of what the company could be – its ethos, brand image and place in the market; they set the direction, steer a course and inspire others to share the belief. Managers help realise the vision, directing staff and operations; they measure and control resources as well as establishing plans, rules and timescales. Of course, managers encourage and motivate too, and some people can both manage and lead” - From BT Business Insight Articles
I’m wondering how do great leaders cascade their vision throughout their teams on a really practical daily basis? In my mind a great leader not only sets the vision, they live it every day and show by example that they understand the intricacies of being aligned to a common goal.
Consider a business that wants to drive performance using OEE and tactical reviews. Quite often we see a great emphasis on documenting, clarifying, and standardising meetings at Non Management, Junior Management, and Middle Management level. If these guys are meeting every 4hr we’d better make the process optimised and efficient so let’s write down what we want them to do and then audit against the documentation. Let’s ensure that all these meetings are highly effective with great quality and impact to our business (sound familiar?).
As we go up through the organisation we tend to see this attention to structure and repeatability weaken until we see Senior Managers carrying out review meetings without an agenda, minutes, or any rating for effectiveness or quality.
Let me ask a couple of questions -
- Are senior managers intrinsically more structured, disciplined, and aligned than a junior or middle management team?
- At senior manager level what is the potential impact on the organisation for each decision made?
- What message does a leadership team give to the rest of the organisation if they insist on structure and discipline that they don’t themselves adhere to?
Leading is different from managing. Great leaders don’t just set the vision, they live it every day. A manager may insist that a team follows a specific structure to get the most from their day, a great leader brings that team into their own daily routines and leads by example. Imagine taking a group of junior managers into a board review in which they see the same documentation, the same structure, and comparable outputs to their tactical review meetings.
Surely it makes sense that if i want my team to perform in a standardised, structured, disciplined, and repeatable manner then the first person i need to change is me?
What disciplines around OEE leadership do you demonstrate each and every day?
OptimumFX OEE Book Store
December 22, 2009 by david.evanson
Here’s a question we get asked regularly - which books do we recommend to support a factory improvement journey?
To help you on your journey i’ve spent the last hour creating a definitive reading list on Amazon for you. Every book on this list i, or my team, have read and used. In many cases we have even given these books to our clients when we help them.
I’ve grouped the books into 3 categories:
1. OEE Books - these are specific books on OEE Improvement
2. Lean Books - these are books on Lean tools and lean implementation.
3. Team books - these are books on leadership and methods of engaging teams with a change programme
As before - we’ve read every one of these and loved them.
Hope you find them as enjoyable as we do!
VISIT OPTIMUMFX READING LIST
Adrian.
You need to reduce downtime, but where do you start?
November 25, 2009 by david.evanson
A great place to start is focusing on your top five sources of down time. Meet with your team, pick one of the five, and brainstorm countermeasures. Next, implement the most promising countermeasures and monitor their effectiveness. Then – do it again.
XL800 makes it easy by providing you with a complete, ready-to-go solution for down time analytics that is so fast to implement you can be up and running in hours.
What are my top sources of down time? XL800 presents your top sources of down time in a simple to understand format.
How do I capture the data? XL800 automatically senses when your line goes down. Your operators simply scan a bar code for the reason. In fact, XL even generates the bar codes for you – right from its web interface. No software to install. No special printers.
How do I know if my countermeasures are working? XL800 automatically generates a trend line that clearly shows if down time is truly being reduced. You can view total down time from a historical perspective, or drill down to evaluate trends for specific down time reasons.
What else can I do? XL800 is a complete performance management solution. It provides automated, accurate real-time manufacturing
intelligence to everyone in your plant. It includes a production scoreboard that motivates your employees to “win” their shift and it
delivers web-based live production information to supervisors and managers – wherever they are.
How long does it take to install? XL800 is easy. It bolts onto your existing production process and you can be literally up and running
in hours. Instant gratification is a wonderful thing!
How much does it cost? XL800 is a great value. The flagship XL800 is £2,910 (including a deluxe plant floor scoreboard). And every
model includes our comprehensive down time tracking solution, along with other great features such as the Total Production Timeline™,
the All Production View, live reporting, OEE tracking, and much more.
What’s the next step? Here are some great options:
- Call me at +44 (0) 7545 429633 – we’ll address your specific challenges.
- Start a FREE trial – try XL800 in your plant with full OptimumFX technical support.
- Schedule an online meeting – see XL800 in action.
- Download an Executive Summary – show XL800 to your team
Pinpoint your production losses
November 22, 2009 by david.evanson
Are you tired of working with sketchy and out-of-date production information? Are you frustrated because you know your lines can do better? Do you need an effective way to get your operators involved?
The XL800 Productivity Appliance exposes production losses in real-time and motivates your operators:
XL800 is easy. It can be installed by your team, so there are no expensive integration charges. We provide a simple installation guide and free technical support - all the tools you need for a fast and easy install.
XL800 is a great value. Our complete solution includes a rugged plant floor visual display, data warehouse and integrated performance management suite, £2910. You can even try it FREE!
What’s the next step?
- Call me at +44 121 447 8520 (we’ll focus right away on solving your biggest challenges)
- Start a FREE trial (try XL800 in your plant with OFX technical support)
- Request an online meeting (see XL800 live and in action)
- Download an Executive Summary (learn more and show XL to your team)
The Benefit of the doubt?
November 22, 2009 by david.evanson
I’ve just been going through my RSS feeds for this week and saw this great blog entry from Seth Godin about how we deal with instances when we misunderstand the communication from a friend versus a stranger:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/11/benefit-of-the-doubt.html
This got me thinking about where else we give the benefit of the doubt rather than probing and prodding below the surface to really understand what causes us to get the results that we’re getting.
For example - How often in your production meetings do you give your colleagues the benefit of the doubt when discussing factory performance? When discussing improvement initiatives? When discussing capital investment? When discussing OEE performance? When carrying out 1-2-1 reviews?
We frequently observe that factory decision making can based on production loss information which can be as low a 33% accurate…and we see teams taking this at face value, working hard, and wondering why performance is flat or sliding backwards.
Let me offer a motto that i personally use everytime i walk into a site: “Seek to Understand before being Understood“.
Next time you have a production meeting seek to understand where the data comes from, how accurate it is, what possible errors it may have, and therefore how effective it has been for guiding your actions.
Understand the challenges that your team face, and their teams. If you don’t do this, who else will?
