Improving productivity, product quality and customer retention is the goal that all of us who manage industrial processes want to achieve, but how do we get there? Step by step, on a path of continuous improvement of our team and our processes. The answer is simple, but the execution is less so.
These six steps are an excellent guide to help you along the way:
- Planning Team: Unify different disciplines and perspectives.
The first thing is to take a good look at your team. Individual departments within the organisation have shown that they can work towards a unified goal and be more productive if they combine knowledge and skills from different disciplines to bring better results. For greatest value,connect members from different areas and with different perspectives and, in regular meetings where opportunities and concerns are discussed, come up with different solutions. If multiple departments are involved, these solutions will have a big impact.
- Define goals that are relevant and achievable.
A cross-functional team with a collaborative approach can take your business only so far, but they can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of possibilities for improvement. Decisions should be based on business priorities To avoid being inundated with goals and objectivesyou can start with goals in areas, systems, lines or disciplines, which have the greatest impact on productivity. A clear understanding of the current level of performance is essential for challenging but realistic improvement. An excellent guide to organise priorities is the ‘Big 6 Loss Tree’ where OEE results are divided into 6 possible lines of improvement.
- Reduce dependencies to reduce errors.
Planning teams must have the ability (and the tools) to non-intrusively obtain vital information to help improve productivity or cut production losses.
Vital company information has a high dependency on operators. This creates the need for operators to be involved in the planning team. They directly impact production, provide information on machine status and bring proposals to improve efficiency on the production lines. However, their main function is to operate on the production line and not to collect detailed performance information.
It is possible to decrease this dependency with the use of tools such as floor control systems, which will deliver reports on each line without adding extra functions to the operators, and these reports will be accurate, which is impossible to obtain if they are generated manually.
- Automate your key indicators for analysis.
Automating the capture of information is a key point - are you sure you are getting real-time and accurate availability, speed and quality indicators? In previous posts we have seen how reducing 2 minutes of downtime per machine can mean millions of dollars (in production and sales) at the end of the year. Unfortunately, when operators are in charge of filling out these forms, the information is not accurate and they miss the opportunity to see which line needs to be improved to make a million-dollar difference in their production. To avoid turning data analysts into data entry clerks, it is necessary that this information is presented on a screen where indicators are displayed against targets and easily accessible to the planning team.
- Prioritise ‘Quality’ as a line of improvement.
The objective should be one: To deliver a better product, in greater quantity, in less time and with less waste. From a manufacturing point of view, improvement efforts should focus on whatever is causing the bottleneck in the plant, following the Theory of Constraints (there will always be one element that limits improvement and, once it is solved, a new one will emerge),but from a business point of view, ‘Quality’ translates into customer loyalty and higher sales, and by improving quality, you are inherently decreasing waste.
- Benchmark your results against industry leaders.
You've got your multifunctional planning team assembled, your operators are focused and engaged in the process, you've got your metrics automated and you're improving the lines that will impact your production, so what's the last step?
Benchmarking against your competitors and industry leaders to see how your company is positioned and this can only be done using Universal indicators.
- Meetings and socialisation at all levels of the company.
In order for the whole team to remain focused on the objectives to be achieved, it is necessary to schedule regular meetings in different areas, some involving the operators, others the managers, others the planning team and others the administrative or management area. In these meetings, progress and results will be socialised, goals will be set and what is happening at a business and operational level will be evaluated, always focused on improvement.
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Following the 6 steps above will ensure sustained growth and the rewards will be seen across all lines of the company, depending on your current status these steps will take time to execute, however they will ensure you are getting closer and closer to achieving World Class Productivity.
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