New Strategies for Driving Continuous Improvement in Your Factory

E-BOOK New Strategies for Driving Continuous Improvement in Your Factory Continuous improvement is a priority for all manufacturers. We track KPIs on waste, downtime, quality rates, excess inventory and more. Even a small improvement in any of these areas can represent significant savings and a competitive edge. For that reason, most manufacturers have an established practice around continuous improvement — people, processes and tools dedicated to the discovery, escalation and resolution of problems that are standing in the way of reaching production potential. But many companies are struggling to formalize and drive the desired results from their continuous improvement efforts. Why? Because they have not figured out how to effectively include factory workers in the process. In this article, we will outline a few simple best practices for engaging and empowering your workers and explain how new digital manufacturing tools can make this easier than ever. “Continuous Improvement” in Need of Improvement Lean, Kaizen, Toyota Production System, or Six Sigma each have slight differences, but the basic theory goes that by identifying and making incremental improvements in your operations, you will drive out waste and improve quality and performance. In today’s rapidly changing manufacturing environment, CI is as relevant as ever. Despite a long history and relative maturity as a formalized area of practice, companies report less than a 60% success rate for CI efforts1. This is not surprising when you consider the outdated tools and processes being used today in most manufacturing operations. Reliance on paper logbooks, in-person meetings, message boards, Microsoft Office applications and email is still the norm in most factories. Operations and critical business processes are disconnected, manual and paper- based for the most part. The result is delayed access to disconnected data that is difficult to analyze and use. The ability to effectively capture and manage factory knowledge is essential to identifying and realizing opportunities for improvement. A lot of promise has been made of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as a way of increasing visibility into operations, but machine data will only tell us part of the story. Our workers on the front-line can provide context and colour to production events that we can never get from data alone. 1 David Linich, Jason Bersgstrom, (2014) Deloitte, “Building a culture of continuous improvement in an age of disruption” Continuous Improvement (CI) methodologies have been around in various forms since the 1950’s. Companies report less than a 60% success rate for CI efforts We find this concept in the “Respect for People” pillar of the Toyota Production System philosophy, described by Fujio Cho, former Toyota Motor Corporation Chairman, as a “system where the workers are allowed to display in full their capabilities through active participation in running and improving their own workshops2”. Despite our best intentions and efforts, building a culture of continuous improvement that extends to workers is not easy without the right tools. Luckily in this age of digital manufacturing, we can leverage innovative mobile applications to connect our workers like we are connecting our machines, so that collectively we can share our experience, grow our knowledge and prevent problems from being repeated. 2 Toyota production system and Kanban system: Materialization of just-in-time and respect-for- human system. International Journal of Production Research, 15(6), 553-564. In this age of digital manufacturing, we can leverage innovative mobile applications to connect our workers like we are connecting our machines, so that collectively we can share our experience, grow our knowledge and prevent problems from being repeated Step 1 Capture Front-Line Input Continuously In an ideal factory, real-time production data is comprehensive and readily available, insight is easy to extract, and everyone is contributing to the collective knowledge from which improvement ideas are found, managed and prioritized. In an ideal, Lean factory where CI culture is strong, contributing ideas does NOT feel like a burden. In fact, workers are motivated to participate because they trust their input will be received and leveraged. Unfortunately, this is not the reality for many companies. The suggestion box has been and remains the primary method of soliciting employee ideas. Suggestion forms dropped in boxes or submitted by email are reviewed by a person or a committee to determine if the idea is worthy of further consideration. A lack of accountability often leads to a backlog of ideas dating back as far as 18 months3. This lack of visibility and feedback to workers results in less engagement and an end to front-line ideas. In a 2009 research study “The Role of Front-Line Ideas in Lean Performance Improvement”, authors Robinson and Schroeder demonstrated a connection between successful lean organizations and what they called “high performing idea systems” that implemented more than 12 ideas per employee, per year. The number one characteristic of high performing idea systems is that ideas get incorporated into daily activities. 3 Alan G. Robinson, Dean M. Schroeder, (2009) “The Role of Front-Line Ideas in Lean Performance Improvement” The #1 characteristic of high performing idea systems is that ideas get incorporated into daily activities How to Capture Front-Line Input Continuously The equivalent of a logbook that captures, organizes and archives important production events and feedback from employees. Not only does your idea system need to be digital, it needs to be mobile. By leveraging tablets on the factory floor, workers have an opportunity to provide feedback in the flow of work, as ideas arise, without leaving their workstations. They should not have to wait for an opportunity to get to the suggestion box, nor wait for the next Gemba walk. Keep communication channels open to relevant colleagues and supervisors so others can comment on posts. This interactivity fosters dialogue, collective brainstorming and immediate feedback. To encourage maximum engagement from employees, the process for submitting feedback and sharing updates needs to be easy. We should not expect long, detailed written explanations of events. Giving workers the ability to capture a production problem through video and photo makes it faster and easier to document the problem and easier for others to understand what happened. In order to support a high volume of front-line ideas, you need a digital communication and collaboration hub for your factory. Giving workers the ability to capture a production problem through video and photo makes it faster and easier to document the problem and easier for others to understand what happened How to Capture Input Continuously Get Digital Give employees a digital communication channel & logbook Make it Accessible Distribute mobile tablets on the factory floor Encourage Engagement By responding to posts & collaborating around ideas Make it Easy The fewer clicks the better Support Multimedia A short video is faster to post than writing and communicates more Giving your front-line workers the ability to digitally share updates and collaborate in the flow of work will: Make it easier for workers to contribute ideas, as part of daily work Help uncover improvement opportunities that are difficult for management to spot (the hidden factory) Demonstrate respect for employees — even if suggestions aren’t accepted, a prompt feedback loop fosters a sense of value Provide workers with a broader awareness of other problems in factory that impact decisions around prioritization Step 2 Analyze and Prioritize Ideas for Continuous Improvement Production leadership and performance teams need to have real-time visibility into what is happening on the factory floor in order to be most effective in managing CI efforts. Most lean organizations use a combination of Gemba Walks, tiered meetings and hopefully some of the ideas from the suggestion box! The concept of Gemba Walks or Management by Walking Around (MBWA) is credited to Taiichi Ohno, founder of the Toyota Production System. The concept is simple. Managers walk the factory floor and through observation and discussion with the workers, discover opportunities for improvement. While Gemba walks are useful for building employee morale, fostering communication and strengthening relationships between workers and management, they have limitations as a continuous improvement tool. Firstly, the information collected is anecdotal — subject to the personal observations and opportunities that arise during the walk. Second, even if walks are regular, they are not continuous. Lastly, MBWA takes time and as a result, can be the first thing to drop off a manager’s busy schedule. Tiered meetings are commonly used to escalate problems and hold team members accountable. Visual Management Boards and shift reports (often in Excel) help drive the meeting agenda. But the KPIs in these reports and boards tell only part of the story. They indicate a problem (i.e. what happened for example production went down for 15 minutes) but do not provide the context and background on why it happened (a belt broke on the wrapper). Once problems have been escalated and prioritized a Kaizen event will typically be initiated starting with a Root Cause Analysis. Commonly used tools include brainstorming, Five Whys, and diagrams. The availability of rich data and insight from the front- line becomes critical at this point but extracting actionable insight from paper PDCA cards, excel files and suggestion email inboxes can be a tedious and lengthy exercise. How to Analyze and Prioritize Ideas for Continuous Improvement Management can take a virtual Gemba walk at any time. Problem solving, or escalation can occur immediately instead of waiting for the next tiered meeting or visit to the factory floor. An important requirement to keep in mind as you open up digital communication channels to your front-line workers, is the need to structure the information to help extract insight. News types related to downtime, maintenance, safety incidents should have consistent data points and be easy to identify. Likewise, tagging equipment makes it easy for performance engineers to see patterns and frequency in issues, and then develop an action plan. You can even create a custom news type to help consolidate discussion and reports related to a specific Kaizen event. Leveraging the production posts complete with video and photos during tiered meetings or Kaizen brainstorming sessions leaves no room for interpretation or broken telephone regarding a problem. The easier it is for experts and engineers to understand the problem, the faster a solution can be found — in some cases, without even needing to go to the factory floor. Communication related to Kaizen sprints and tracking the PDCA process can and should be digital. Manufacturers cannot achieve their goals of transparency, accountability, and efficiency as long as they use outdated tools (Excel) and processes (in-person meetings alone). By going digital, the history of collaboration around an issue can be easily accessed, avoiding the pain of reinventing the wheel when recurring issues arise again Once factory communication is digital, centralized and used as a continuous part of daily work as defined in Step 1 above, identifying priorities for improvement becomes much easier. The easier it is for experts to understand the problem, the faster a solution can be found With a centralized, searchable database of constantly growing knowledge and feedback, management and CI teams will be able to: Better track ideas for future consideration if not acted upon immediately. Complement their Gemba walks with constant updates throughout the day and week. Analyze problems more easily Improve accountability and transparency How to Manage & Analyze CI Ideas More Effectively Centralize Important Communications Creating a digital logbook Define Your Data Structure Ensure digital communication channels mirror your operations Categorize Posts by Event Types Facilitate tracking downtime, maintenance or shift changeover Tag Equipment Make it easier to identify patterns on problem machines Leverage Video & Photos Gain better insight into events and issues Step 3 Learn Continuously The end goal of any continuous improvement effort is to discover a new, better way of working that becomes the standard. This type of applied organizational learning ultimately drives competitive advantage. Unfortunately, too many companies find themselves in constant firefighting mode, jumping from one problem to the next. Solving problems in the moment but not permanently. Even when a better way of working is identified it is not always communicated swiftly, consistently or globally. This is often what leads to inconsistencies in performance between shifts and plants. And when there is a failure to capture and effectively communicate the new standard, tribal knowledge persists. Most factories have thousands of work instructions documented, and thousands more that are not. Once again, traditional tools and processes are to blame — exacerbating the challenge of creating and maintaining Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs). Long, written documentation is time consuming to produce and once published, is saved on a corporate drive which is seldom accessed. Training workers on a new standard is time consuming and often involves pulling workers away from the production floor. Today, workers typically have to leave their workstations to be trained or access manuals with trouble-shooting tips away from the factory floor. This creates unnecessary disruptions and downtime. When there is a failure to capture and effectively communicate the new standard, tribal knowledge persists How to Build a Continuous Learning Culture While this is great, it can be a challenge to manage when it comes time to capturing and training your workforce on that new improved way of working. We don’t want to pull entire workforce off the floor to receive training on a new instruction. Giving workers access in the flow of work is the answer. In order to increase the likelihood that operators will remember the new work instructions, the information should be brief and, ideally, presented in video format. In fact, retention is increased by 20% compared to traditional formats when information is presented in short segments, with content running between 3 to 6 minutes, according to a 2015 study out of the university of Germany. Further, the realities of working on a production line are such that any opportunity to learn in the flow must be brief in order to minimize downtime. In many organizations, the ability to share best practices and collective knowledge across plants is a challenge. But when you have a knowledge base that is structured properly, with content organized by equipment model number, manufacturer and product sku, it becomes possible to update instructions globally, in a single click. When Steps 1 and 2 are successful, the CI team will be pumping out improvements to standard work on a constant basis. Retention is increased by 20% compared to traditional formats when information is presented in short segments How to Support Continuous Learning Create Digital Work Instructions For basic operations, maintenance & other tasks Use Video For better comprehension & retention Keep Instructions Short Focused on one-point lessons Provide Access In the flow of work on mobile tablets Standardize Across global operations based on common equipment By moving to digital, video-based work instructions, accessible on the factory floor, manufacturers can: Facilitate learning and retention for workers Ensure complete coverage of new skills Reduce the time to create work instructions — video takes 30-50% less time to create than written instructions Easily standardize on work across multiple sites Poka is a mobile application that drives performance and productivity in factories by enabling workers to share, learn and solve problems in the flow of work. With Poka, workers use tablets at each workstation to search for troubleshooting solutions, complete training, share important updates and even send out calls for help in the event of downtime. The result is a continuously updated knowledge base of best practices and training guides, automatically shared with the workers who need them, across shifts and global operations. Poka is trusted by 12 of the largest manufacturers as ranked by Industry Week, including digital leaders like WestRock, Danone, Keurig and ArcelorMittal. Poka Can Help Interested in learning how Poka can make lean manufacturing easy? Schedule a Demo