What Daily Process Improvement Looks Like in Manufacturing

What Daily Process Improvement Looks Like in Manufacturing

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daily process manufacturing

Process Improvement is at its best when it doesn’t look like much. We often fall into the trap of needing expensive equipment or consultants to save money, and in the end it costs us money.

Rule of thumb: real change needs to develop from inside. If you try to force it from the outside, it will be short-lived and expensive.

Change that makes real money has 2 overlapping qualities: it’s about leadership (it starts with you, not them), culture (buy-in required, which leads to consistency). In manufacturing, we think a lot about changes like value stream mapping and big capital improvements, but these will fall flat without a cultural shift.

 

Culture

“Empowering” is a great word for a PowerPoint, but we need to follow through. That looks like 4 things:

 

what empowerment looks like in daily process manufacturing

 

Leadership

Don’t tell your troops to leap out of the trench while you finish your power lunch. Go to the shop floor before the boardroom and start with them. Ask what bugs them. Have those conversations that we always think we don’t have time for.

If the tool box is too far away and the storage, which no one uses, too close, then your team will catch the inefficiency years before you do. If someone doesn’t have the training they need, your team is the most likely to catch it before a dangerous accident.

Your staff will probably embrace the “lean way.” You’ll drive them and they will respond admirably. That brings in the next hurdle; that change will evaporate in 4 months if you put the autopilot on.

Systemic change is a commitment. It’s:

  • Articulating your vision and sharing it transparently with your team
  • Providing the resources that you all need: it’s an investment
  • Creating a Process Improvement System that will help you and your team stay the course even if enthusiasm falters

Good leadership is about fostering a healthy sense of urgency. Unhealthy urgency is unsustainable and corner-office-driven. You need urgency that comes from the shop floor and sustains itself month after month, year after year.

It’s not enough to keep the machinery well oiled for a month. There’s a sense of urgency – coming from not wanting the engine to seize – that keeps the urgency strong. As leader, it’s your job to keep it strong across your business.

“For companies to change, we need to stop thinking like mechanics and to start acting like gardeners.”

 

— Alan M. Webber

4 Ways Manufacturers can Start a Culture of Process Improvement

4 Ways Manufacturers can Start a Culture of Process Improvement

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Culture Process Improvement in Manufacturing - featured

Ice hockey fans still remember the fairy-tale victory when the US men’s team beat out the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. And why do we remember? Certainly, a big part of it is about the context. Cold War politics and recession economics meant that people were yearning for something positive to unite around. But, this was also the win that put an end to a 20-year losing streak for the Americans. And you can bet that the coach, Herb Brook, had to work hard to get the US team to the top of the winner’s podium.

So what was Coach Brook’s strategy?

It was simple: get started and be steady. His eye stayed fixed on the long game and he instituted a multiyear process focused entirely on building a strong team culture. His goal was to turn individual stars into team contributors, and he supported his approach by choosing metrics that measured the right things.

It’s not so different than what you need to do on the manufacturing floor. Here are four ways you can start coaching your team toward a culture of process improvement:

 

1. Start joining forces

You can’t expect a team that never practices together to win. As a leader, it’s your job to get the people who play different positions – different departments, shifts, or units – together and to let them practice solving problems. Make a game of it, build interdisciplinary teams, and get competitive. Keep it easy by giving each group a task to work on together and watch their creativity, see them connect with each other, and celebrate their successes with them.

 

2. Start talking

If you want process improvement to be top-of-mind for your employees, you need to make sure they are hearing about it as often as possible.

And how do you engineer that?

Regular meetings. We’re big advocates of the daily 15-minute standing meeting (and you can read more about that HERE).

And why is that?

Put simply, those daily meetings have been the most important way we’ve found to institute process improvements. We spend a few minutes educating our team about Lean principles and practices and then give them space to talk. Every day. We’ve seen it increase our group’s morale and their commitment, and we’ve watched as these conversations have touched every single aspect of our organization, from scheduling to customer satisfaction. It will do the same for you.

 

3. Start mining talent

Guaranteed there are some golden nuggets hiding deep inside your people. Dig into that by giving people a chance to try new things. Cross-training between groups can help ensure workers get a chance to see and try different roles. New eyes on old tasks can help you see things differently and make adjustments that increase productivity and build a better product, bringing more value to your customers. This kind of training can also reduce the time, money, and effort spent on filling skill gaps and searching for new talent. Another great side benefits: when more people understand how to do a job, bottlenecks decrease and deadlines get easier to meet.

 

Culture Process Improvement Manufacturing

4. Start empowering

Ground-up innovations are the gold standard in most manufacturing firms. Everyone wants that technician or assembler – those people who know the ins and outs of your systems because they work in them every day – to have that lightbulb moment and say, “What if we did it this way instead?”

So here’s the question: What are you doing to give your people an opportunity to speak up? How are you empowering them to improve processes? Some outfits do it through big events like a FedEx day or a kaizen activity. Others spend time on the floor with their teams and ask for suggestions. Then there are those who have built the kind of trust that invites their employees to just come to them with their thoughts. An “open door, open mind” policy.

Whatever combination you choose, the point is to let your workers see that you have confidence in them: that you’re willing to try out their ideas. This kind of empowerment will pay off in the form of improved efficiency and reduced errors on your production line.

The big wins for manufacturers usually start with small changes. A tweak here and an adjustment there can create millions of dollars worth of opportunities. To find your way into that game, get your team practicing together, get them talking to you and to each other about the changes you need to make in order to win. Show them that you believe in their potential. Try out their suggestions. Let them play in different positions. Applaud when they score a goal and go back to the drawing board when there’s a miss. It’s all part of the same game, and while “fairy-tale” might not be the right word, the victory will still be there.

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Talent

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Talent

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When you Google the 8 Deadly Wastes, you’ll often find 7 of them. Historically, the focus has been on processing, whereas the 8th Waste focuses on the far more abstract, “People.”

To those paying attention, this should be a Waste to be concerned about. To those not paying attention, and focusing only on equipment and processes, this should be downright frightening.

Process improvement can’t be effective without broad staff engagement. Staff from the boardroom to the utility room need to be thinking about what’s feeling off or bugging them, and then need to feel empowered to speak up about it.

If you’re already actively engaging your team about Lean and Process Improvement, you probably have a good start on controlling this waste.

Abstraction:

Every time a team member stays silent on an idea or shrugs off the urge to read a trending article in the industry, it’s Waste. You can’t measure it, because the Waste is losing the creativity that would build your company up, rather than only fixing the problems breaking it down.

Industries are being disrupted and uprooted one at a time, and if you’re in an industry that has, until now, been relatively unaffected, it’s a matter of when, not if. To survive, we must innovate and adapt, and do it constantly. Engaged people are the only thing that will get us there.

Hiring:

Are you hiring for skills or attitude? If you’re hiring for skill set alone (ie. lathe operator), you can measure the skills you’re getting and there’s often minimal training needed. That makes it pretty appealing.

Here’s what you don’t know when hiring for skills alone: that person may not take the extra step to challenge and push the business farther, and may just do exactly what is required, and no more. If you’re hiring to grow your company and compete on a new level, hire instead for attitude.

Tom Chandler’s KASH Box is a useful tool for balancing considerations of trained skills with built-in habits. The manufacturing workplace we’re moving towards is as much about creativity as process.

factory worker looking out window - two workers working on a project

Fixing It:

The responsibility for this Waste falls to management. Your team will react to the messages you send them. Here are a few usual suspects leading to Talent Waste:

  • Assigning staff to tasks they aren’t suited for: If they hate what they’re doing, they won’t engage with the processes enough to want to improve them.
  • Lack of Teamwork: If someone feels isolated or unsupported, they’re very unlikely to come forward with innovations. This is especially true if the atmosphere is competitive and they feel like someone will steal their idea.
  • Poor Management: “Aloof” is usually the best synonym for “poor,” In this case. It’s not the employee’s job to go the extra mile, it’s the boss’s job to give them the motivation, respect, and time to do so.
  • Insufficient Training: Training isn’t just how to work machinery, it’s also how we begin fostering the mindsets that will drive innovation forward. It’s also not something you do the first week then stop: training leads into education, and that should never stop.

See our previous article on Talent Waste here.

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Inventory

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Inventory

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Do you feel comfortable? Are you sitting pretty just you can service any order that comes in, no matter what the size? Then you’re playing the dangerous game of Over-Inventory.

Inventory is a tide. As is rises, your ship (the business) is buoyed higher and we stop worrying about the rocks (the inefficiencies) beneath the surface. As we build a “comfort stock” we tie up valuable cash on gambles and lose track of other Wastes that are draining our resources.

General:

Let’s follow your processes. As your raw material moves through the steps to becoming a finished product, more dollars are pumped into it.

Over-Inventory, and Overproduction, it’s nasty cousin, stem from a blend of idealism and disengagement. We fall for the “make it and they will come” myth and, at the same time, crave the comfort of knowing that we’re ready for any sized order.

Raw Material:

Do you shop at Costco thinking it saves you money? Mythbuster: it usually doesn’t once you factor in all the Food Waste that comes from buying bulk.

Same rules apply for your business. Suppliers tempt us with percentages off if we buy in bulk, which sounds like a good idea; you’re going to use it all anyway, right? Wrong. It’s more often a cash-killer.

Buying in bulk clogs up receiving areas, leading to temporary storage popping up and inviting Waste in everywhere. The possibilities of double-handling and potential spoilage (depending on the material, of course) set in.

What’s the lowest amount of inventory you can carry before production grinds to a halt? Can you balance your freight to deliver smaller loads, even if that leads to milk-running? Get close to the rocks; get uncomfortable.

over-inventory blog - workers counting inventory in warehouse

Mid-Assembly:

You’ll have multiple steps in your assembly process (depending on your product). Waste can happen in any of them if you haven’t synced the processes between them.

If one process is faster, the partially assembled inventory will build up and as it accumulates, it’s more likely to get moved, damaged, dirtied, or lost.

Make continuous flow your goal. Sync your processes with each other, so that even if inventory accumulates before the next step, it’s predicted and managed.

Balancing Expectations:

Finished inventory is the biggest Waste. Think of all the money that goes into one finished widget. Now imagine each widget as a frozen chunk of that cash that can only be thawed and used again when bought.

Catastrophic Waste happens when your finished products accumulate to the point of paralyzing your cash flow. Comfort turns to panic on a dime, and product will often need to be discounted to keep operations moving.

You can’t operate with zero finished inventory; when customers call, they expect rapid delivery. But what is the lowest amount you reasonably need? Do the math. What orders can you expect in a month? What is a baseline of unexpected orders to come in? Unless your production process takes a long time, plan to carry less than the baseline.

Make it uncomfortable. Efficiencies will follow.

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Transportation

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Transportation

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It’s easy to confuse “Transportation Waste with “Motion” Waste. The former is the unnecessary movement of materials, while the latter is the unnecessary movement of people. Manufacturing is full of both.

General:

Transportation Waste happens at every point in the supply chain, from raw material delivery to final assembly. To identify these Wastes, follow that chain and make note of the usual suspects along the way.

Here’s what you’ll find: Waste happens everywhere, but the instances happen less the earlier you are in your supply chain, as they are more costly per instance. However, while it’s more glaringly obvious with half-empty semis, half-full carts can be just as expensive due to increased frequency.

Waste Spin-Offs:

No Waste is an island. Besides wasting time, fuel, and giving you a stress headache, excessive transport can also lead to:

  • Over-Inventory: things get stacked up in temporary places only to be sorted through later
  • Defects: moving materials leads to dirt, damage, or loss.
  • Waiting: the more you shuffle things around, the less likely they’ll be in their designated spot when needed, resulting in waiting.

Start with your Supply Chain:

This begins with thinking of where to set up shop, but continues throughout the life of your business. How close are you to your vendors? If it’s excessive, and you’re back and forth often, is it worth paying little more upfront for closer suppliers? Don’t assume: do the math.

Half-full trucks are a glaring Waste. Find partners to share, even if that’s with a competitor (only if your vendors ensure confidentiality, of course).

Don’t fear the milk run. We assume that direct routes are more efficient and they often aren’t. When that trailer full of raw materials lands at your dock, is it going to gum up your processes to store it all?

Manufacturing storage - Transportation Waste in Lean business

How’s your Storage?:

Transportation Waste tends to be more obvious in receiving rather than production.

You’re getting regular deliveries. Are the trucks being unloaded into temporary storage that you’ll need to move again later, or are they going directly from first storage point to production? Plan for the latter, unless a small storage area at point of production is necessary (see below).

How full are your carts? Are your forklift operators driving with half-loads when they could be full? Always opt to maximize your transport efficiency between processes, especially if it’s a longer distance. There’s a caveat though: sometimes loading the last third of that cart involves waiting or motion waste that kills the efficiency.

Keep your lanes clear. If you have to weave around piles of temporary storage and random clutter, you’re wasting resources in so many ways. Paint lines for runways to keep clear between processes, if you have to.

Your Production Area:

Whether you’re making cars or crayons, your job is to assemble raw materials into a finished product in the most efficient way possible. When a worker frequently needs raw material, anything further than an arm’s length away is wasteful.

Are all materials close-at-hand when needed? If not, what’s the process in getting them from storage to the production area? If you’re bringing raw material over in tiny batches often, ask yourself if it would be beneficial to establish a smaller storage area at the point of production.

This tactic is closely tied to Motion Waste. Once you bring your raw materials closer, you can zero-in on the steps and movements your workers need to take.

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Over-Processing

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Over-Processing

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You create a finished product out of raw materials. You’ve paid for it, and usually have a little wiggle-room to add margins based on possible differentiators.

If you add something extra to a widget that matters to your customer, they’ll pay more money. If you add something that doesn’t, they won’t. The money you waste by adding something without value is Over-Processing Waste.

In your Processes:

Let’s look at it like mixing coffee. A few twists of the stir-stick is usually enough, but we often add another ten. While five seconds wasted per cup isn’t world-ending, it’s wasted time that could be spent elsewhere.

Walk through your processes with several trusted team members; one isn’t enough. Over-Processing is often buried in personal habits (like excessive coffee stirring) and varies by person.

Polishing Cannonballs:

The good news is that if Over-Processing is built into your manufacturing, improvements aren’t difficult.

Again, get involved in the processes:

  • Are you painting areas that won’t be visible or exposed to corrosion?
  • Are you polishing a surface that doesn’t require it?
  • Are your guidelines excessively tight, requiring wasteful levels of detail and scrutiny?

If Over-Processing exists, the customer will likely not notice or care if you change it. If it adds value, however, you’ll hear about it. Before trimming Over-Processing, sleep on proposed changes and make sure you strongly consider the customer, their needs, and your MVP (see below).

Standardize:

Manufacturing - boxes on a conveyer belt and worker doing tests on machines

In the world of efficiency, there is the most efficient way, and all other ways. It’s like how one, and only one, car can win a race.

If two people are performing the same function in different ways, one is more efficient. Document the better process and train everyone to do it that way.

Keep your standardization organic, especially if just starting out. The next person may have a more efficient way, and so might the person after them. The more empowered your team feels to share their ideas, the more efficient your standardized processes will become.

MVP:

Pricing a product is one of the most delicate things you could do. There’s the best practice of using competitive products to benchmark, but to find a margin, you’ll likely add some differentiating features.

Finding the right balance between what customers are willing to pay and what you’re willing to charge is difficult, and you never know for sure if you’ve gotten it right. When we’re unsure, many of us start adding to our products to improve sales.

Try this: write down all the features of your product, no matter how small. Separate them between what your customer needs and what they would like.

The first column (Needs) is your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It’s the essential core to your product. These features are untouchable.

The second column (Wants) are your added value features. Here’s where to get critical. Does your customer want each of these features enough to pay for them to increase your margins? Or are they frills that won’t give you visible ROI?

With each new product and feature you want to add, repeat this exercise. If the customer isn’t willing to pay, don’t add it.