In the manufacturing world, the name of the game is to figure out how to make more, faster. Avoid downtime, keep the process running, be safe and find ways to save money while you’re at it. Over time, life in this world can devolve into something to be survived. Even with the best of intentions, operators, engineers and managers often find themselves running from one (hopefully) proverbial fire to the next. It becomes a game of survival, where you end up scheduling weeks long vacations to avoid burnout, only to return and head back into the fire. The kicker is that when you’re caught in this trap, you know that there are systemic process issues at the heart of most of the problems you encounter, yet you never have the time to fully investigate.
There are three common process traps that manufacturing organizations get caught in. The first trap is being Stuck on the Hamster Wheel of everyday operations, that is, running fast and going nowhere. In this trap, you feel run by the business and are easily distracted by what’s immediately in front of you to deal with. Things like customer complaints, process breakdowns, production errors and safety incidents. You feel like there’s no time left to improve anything even though you really want to. It’s like treading water in a pool where the water only gets deeper and deeper. Life on the Hamster Wheel sounds like:
- Our process just can’t seem to move fast enough
- We’re always behind in processing orders
- We’re too busy to even try to improve
- Our business is growing faster than we can keep up with
The second trap is called Firefighting. This trap is misleading because being the hero who saves the day not only looks good, they get rewarded! Left unattended for too long, this behaviour can create a culture of resentment and cynicism. The illusion lies in the successes of saving the day, all the while masking the systemic process issues that are causing the major problems. No one ever has time to address the root causes of process problems, they’re too busy putting out fires! And heaven forbid your one guy ever leaves the company. The Firefighting trap sounds like:
- Thank goodness for Joe, we’d be lost without him
- I spent the whole week putting out fires
- Did we get anything accomplished today?
Finally, the insidious third trap – Looking for Answers in All the Wrong Places. Human beings are wired to find problems and try to fix them. The third trap arises when we miss seeing what’s not immediately obvious for the sake of fixing problems quickly. You genuinely try to improve processes by making them run faster, hiring more people or automating actions, yet you’re left wondering why your problems didn’t go away or sometimes even got worse as a result of your fix. This happens because you’re reacting to symptoms of the process problems with bandaid solutions instead of getting to the source of the problem and dealing with the root cause of the process problems. The third trap is akin to the adage of looking for your keys where the light is, instead of where you dropped them. Looking for Answers in All the Wrong Places sounds like:
- We’ve been trying to improve, why are we not further ahead?
- Our product failed inspection again, didn’t we fix that last week?
- Is it even possible to win this game?
So how exactly do you free yourself from the common manufacturing process traps? First, there is to recognize and acknowledge that you’ve been stuck in a trap. Now you’re free to create! Enter Lean Six Sigma – your ticket out of the trap is to cause a lean transformation of your business operations.
Causing a Lean Transformation of your business is a four step process, outlined below. In step one, the Current State of the process is established, including process performance metrics such as production rate, quality metrics and cycle time. Next a Future State is declared, creating an outcome that is worth living into that will make a positive impact on the process. You’re encouraged to create a Future State that you don’t immediately know how to fulfill.
Next, use the Lean Six Sigma tools to create the Lean Pathway and achieve the Future State:
Process Mapping – Map your manufacturing process from start to finish, streamline the process and reduce process cycle time
Workload Balancing – Create flow in your process by balancing the workload across available resources to maximize production
Root Cause Analysis – Get to the source of your systemic process problems and design effective solutions for the root causes
5S – Organize your workplace with a place for everything and everything in its’ place, save time searching for tools and materials
Poke-Yoke – Mistake-proof your process and eliminate the opportunity for errors to occur, reduce re-work and excess processing
SMED Quick Changeover – Dramatically reduce changeover and setup time for production lines and equipment, increase runtime
Value Analysis & Waste Elimination – Reduce and eliminate waste in your process to deliver optimal value to your customers
The final step for causing a Lean Transformation is Process Sustainment. This is the most critical stage and ensures that the gains and improvements achieved during the transformation are sustained over time. Process sustainment systems and structures including Visual Management and Standard Work are developed to ensure that the improvements are monitored and continue to work over time.
My Clients have achieved the following outcomes using this Lean Transformation model:
- Reduced equipment downtime for a fertilizer manufacturing company by 48%, generating an extra month worth of production, valued at $11M
- Expanded capacity in a hospital outpatient unit by 25% without adding resources, created the opportunity to care for 500 more patients per year
- Reduced process changeover time by 55% from 3 hours to 100 minutes, saving 53 hours per year and over $17,000 in operating costs
- Streamlined process operations for a technology company by 40%, enabled their expansion into a new market
Manufacturing organizations that commit to causing a Lean Transformation of their business achieve cost savings in the realm of 25% to 40% or higher, save significant amounts of processing time, enjoy the benefits of a safer workplace and experience a positive shift in their workplace culture. If you’re committed to achieving world class performance in your manufacturing operations, let’s explore what’s possible for the Lean Transformation of your organization. I invite you to contact me by email at holly.blair@engineeringpossibilities.ca or visit our website at www.engineeringpossibilities.ca to get started. My Lean Six Sigma training programs, lean simulations, consulting and coaching services are here to empower your success!
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