Struggling to improve?
March 23, 2009 by david.evanson
Something that struck me the other day was how many sites have had Lean Initiative-itis over the years.By this i mean that they’ve tried to implement various of lean/quality/OEE activities, some internally, some with consultants but for some reason they’ve struggled to improve.
I’m sure we all recognise the symptoms - branded literature up on the walls from past consultant-supported activity, semi-filled in paperwork, practices in place that exist due to habit rather than the value that they add, a weariness from the folks on the factory floor when it comes to ‘another funny acronym’.
I know things are bad when we talk to an operator about “quick changeovers” and they tell me they know all about that “SMED stuff”…..as they start a 6 hour changeover. Or if every front line manager i talk to has 9-5 meetings every day, or when i walk a line and see more than 1 noticeboard…and it’s out of date.
Here’s something that i have come to believe - the Lean toolkit contains some great tools for reducing waste and improving OEE and there still comes a point in my opinion where “if you can’t change the people, change the people”.
Far too often i see implementations that are attempted from a very genuine desire to improve yet with poor people-management support. Quite often in sites that are in this place there are fantastic performance management tools available and they’re not being used.
When we look at the sites that we know get the most sustainable performance one thing they all have in common is that there is a robust performance mangagement system in place and being implemented in full on a daily basis.
If you’re introducing any sort of change process (lean, an OEE drive, a quality drive) here are my thoughts on how to be successful:
1. Make it personal - people have to care. Make sure they have an emotional reason for doing this…make sure YOU have an emotional reason for doing this.
2. You can’t build a strong house on a weak foundation - get the basics right first; ensure that you have a people performance management system in place AND WORKING!
3. If you have the wrong person in the wrong role then you’re not helping them or yourself…they’re probably miserable. Use your tools to help them find a role where they can be happy and productive. This happened to me early in my corporate career and i look back with huge gratitude to the director who did this with me in such an open and supportive manner.
4. “Aces in Places”: Make your best people responsible for creating change and get them to coach your rising stars
5. Ensure that your implementation team have precise objectives for this implementation and that they are linked to personal performance objectives
6. Carry out regular documented reviews to coach on performance and provide guidance/focus
7. Follow up on all actions that come from the reviews
8. Hold people to account for implementing the change: Reward for success and use your performance management tools if the project is floundering
As ever - delighted to welcome your feedback as these are simply my ideas post a 2 hour workout on Monday evening! So fill out the box below and let me know what you think.
Planning Optimisation
February 27, 2009 by samirshah
Why Optimise Planning?
Traditional view of industry - Push the products out into the market
- - Keep producing even when there is no demand
- - Keep the factory running all the time
- - Keep lots of stock
Lean approach - Demand from the market pulls products
- - Only produce what you can sell
- - Don’t produce to hold in stock
- - Keep minimum/no stock levels
“To keep a balance between reducing overall warehousing costs and be able to satisfy varying demand (e.g. seasonal) as well as maximise availability at the production facility companies utilise both the push and pull approach”
For this reason it is necessary to pay particular importance to optimising production planning.
There have been conflicting views between the corporate strategy for planning and the site strategy for what should be planned. The reason for this is related to how the departments are measured and targeted. At the corporate level it is all about reducing cost and increasing the flexibility to deliver where as at site level it is all about maximising performance measures such as OEE. This leads to very little synergy and a lot of animosity between the corporate planning department and the site production department.
The ultimate aim should be to deliver the products at the right time, at the right price and at the required quality to the customer.
At the corporate level there needs to be an understanding about the plant/line capability. This is the actual delivery capacity of the line. The key element to understand is that if the number of products to be made is large the actual availability to produce will be low reducing the actual capacity due to the number of changeovers required. To have the maximum capacity available, there needs to be a strategy to have as many long runs of product as possible and minimise need of the changeovers as much as possible.
At the site level, there needs to be an understanding that there are requirements to produce small runs of certain products due to their demand profile and to keep the warehousing costs low. Once the amount of products to be made is received from central planning, the site scheduling department needs to look at scheduling the production runs that will maximise the line availability by looking at combining production runs that are required at different times and by looking at minimising changeover times by scheduling product runs that require minimum operations (therefore time) to changeover. The site can look at ways to optimise their changeovers by implementing quick changeover programmes such as SMED and by looking at technology and innovation to eliminate changeovers all together between different product runs.
Therefore to summarise:
- Understand what product types are runners, repeaters and strangers - Please read an article on “The Reflective Supply Chain in Manufacturing” By John Hicks and Patrick Lee
- Decide on minimum buffer (stock) quantity for each product type
- Determine production batch size of each when minimum stock quantity is reached - this may vary on future demand and seasonality
- Put together a production plan to make products that have reached their minimum stock quantity - decide between product mix and volume required by taking into account plant/line capability with a view to maximise plant/line availability
Protected: Realising Leadership Potential (RLP)
December 17, 2008 by samirshah
Help your operators create their own improvement toolkit
December 3, 2008 by david.evanson
I was asked today about which books i would recommend for getting more information on continuous improvement implementation in the FMCG industry. Specifically the guy i was talking to had already read The Toyota Way and The Goal, and instead wanted something really practical to help with a specific continuous improvement implementation, something that he could use with his front line managers.
So here is a range of books that i massively recommend (and often send copies to new clients considering SMED, 5s, TPM, OEE, Poka Yoke exercises). These books are written ‘for operators’ and are extremely practical, straight forward, and hugely valuable in any application:
All the links will send you to Amazon.co.uk:
2. Identifying waste on the shop floor
3. Mistake proofing for opeartors - Poke Yoke made really simple, a great book
4. Pull production for operators
8. Cellular Manufacturing for operators
10. Quick Changeover for operators (SMED)
Just remember that there’s a difference between knowing the tools and knowing how to apply them. These books make a great start of introducing topics in a way which makes implementing them just a little bit easier.
