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In last month’s
newsletter, I wrote about a common problem in manufacturing: behind schedule
work in the shop. We looked at a brief introduction of the problems, analysis
and some measurements of the process. The workcenter was scheduled manually
through much effort by the general foreman and shop lead man. Many jobs were
behind schedule causing much confusion and poor operations performance. This
month’s article will focus on the assessment, root cause analysis, solutions and
what contributed to the success of the project.
Much conflict existed
trying to meet numerous demands to expedite orders. There was constant change to
the “hot” list with multiple managers directing workers, confusion, change of
direction, frustration and wasted effort. Operations management & employees
wanted a better process to manage and schedule the shear workcenter. They were
open to process changes.
To resolve these
problems, someone of leadership and decision making power must desire to correct
the situation. A “perceived need to improve” must exist. In many situations,
problems will be rooted in other organizations and you must have sufficient
decision making authority to cause changes in those organizations. Essentially,
if you can’t get the process changed in another organization, your improvement
effort will not go as smoothly and be as successful as you would like. Here are
the findings and solutions from the project.
I initially printed off
the dispatch list and compared it to the mountain of job paper in the
workcenter. There were many jobs which could not be worked for any number of
reasons. Those jobs were identified, put on “hold” and the paperwork returned to
the production control department. At the time, the “held for” reporting process
in the software wasn’t being used to identify, track and manage jobs. Prior to
this we had no idea how many jobs were on hold. We implemented a formal
held-for process. We identified approximately 75 jobs that could not be worked
and changed the job status to “held”. A held-job report and meeting are now in
place and continually review.
Another major problem
was the volume of job paper in the workcenter. It was common to have more than
200 jobs in the workcenter. A review of the dispatch list identified jobs that
weren’t scheduled to start for many months in the future. All the jobs that
weren’t scheduled to start within the next two or three months were returned to
production control. A more formal release process was implemented. We added an
additional operation at the beginning of the part routing for “order release”
with two days of queue time. Now we have a dispatch list for the order release
process. The two days of queue time is added into the schedule and production
schedulers have a dispatch list to work from.
The dispatch list also
revealed that there were many jobs behind schedule. An analysis showed that
some of the jobs had already been completed but the operation had not been clock
complete by the machine operators. A more formal process is in place to ensure
that job operations are clocked complete.
We also found that many
of the leadtimes for both internal and external operations were seldom updated.
We developed and implemented an on-going review and update of internal, outside
service and shipping leadtimes. Leadtimes are reviewed when jobs are released
and compared to the standard planning leadtimes and updates are made for any
differences. One benefit of leadtime analysis was the identification of
“batching up” of like metals for outside processing. It is common practice to
stage a number of jobs of like materials and send them all at the same time for
outside processing. This helps reduce vendor minimum charges. We inserted queue
time before the vendor operation to allow time in the schedule to batch up like
materials.
Another problem was
ensuring that materials used on a job were reported. A process and report has
been implemented to ensure that once a job was started, that the material has
been issued to the job and relieved from inventory.
We listened to people in
the shop! I had many discussions with the shop people and they had always said
that there wasn’t enough time in the schedule. Our detailed analysis found this
to be true in quite a few cases. The implementation of a lead time management
process has been vital to getting jobs released to the shop in time. The
analysis, identification and resolution of root causes of problems were key to
success. The acceptance of new processes by employees and management also
contributed to the program. Having a plan and leadership is step #1 to getting
started and maintaining momentum.
Today, operations
management is making very few trips to the workcenter to sort through jobs and
schedule operations. The dispatch list is being used by workcenter employees and
has significantly reduced the amount of confusion and conflict in between
production control, shipping and manufacturing. Behind schedule has been reduced
not only in the shear workcenter but throughout the factory as jobs are getting
started on time. There is much better visibility of the status of the
workcenter. There has been a significant reduction in supervisory time needed to
control the workcenter along with a decrease is overtime. More work is getting
done less confusion effort and we’re taking advantage of cutting jobs with like
materials at the same time.
Information is a vital
component in today’s manufacturing environment. Information in your computing
system, will uncover the root causes of problems in your factory. I am 100%
convinced of this. I worked with some very bright Dutch systems analysts in
Buffalo, NY and they said “the devil is in the details”. If you can’t / don’t /
won’t use your computing reports, then you’ll never advance to the next level of
performance. You won’t be able to identify and fix the business processes that
are creating problems. Computing system reports point the finger at the
processes that are not working, identify responsibilities and processes where
improvements are needed. They identify business processes such as “lead time
management” which is quite often overlooked in the manufacturing organization.
Some comments from
workcenter lead & shop foreman:
“I only go over to the
shear area once or twice a day, sometimes I don’t go over there at all” “Things
are going great and we’ve got a good handle on it now”
We continue to measure
and polish the new processes and keep people motivated to identify problems,
communicate them and work with others to solve them. |
