Feedback and improvements – Carter's Journey

Having spoken to all the employees as planned over the next two weeks there was a steady response to my question “what’s wrong with Company?” The feedback items can be summarised as follows:

1. They don’t pay us enough
2. We don’t have enough holidays
3. We’ve never got the right tools for the job
4. We have to beg steal or borrow tools to do a job
5. What tools we have got are never in the right place
6. We waste time
7. Supervisors don’t seem to respect or don’t think we have brains
8. Facilities are poor
9. Everything seems an emergency
10. Priorities change regularly

As you might imagine not all of these issues were surprises. In the short-term there was little I could do about pay and holidays without hurting the performance of the Company but it seemed to me the solution to items 3-6 could provide a win-win. Success would address the issues raised by the work force and margins would increase.
I decided to seek the help of a guy (Phil) I’d worked with a while ago who was heavily into continuous improvement techniques. I rang him and invited him to come and have a look at the factory.
He had a free rein during his visit spending time on the shop floor observing and talking to our operatives together with talking to our supervisors. We met late in the afternoon and he gave me his feedback. Whilst there was a lot to tackle he warned of setting off numerous improvement projects which would be difficult to control and to track their impact on the performance of the business. We discussed the ten feedback items and agreed these really came down to:

• Conditions
• Methods
• Man management
• Planning

It would be nice to think that our plan of action would impact these and improve the Company performance although I realised how we planned the factory would be a big issue.
So where to start? I decided to spend some time on the shop floor observing some of the issues raised from Phil’s visit myself. It soon became clear that no matter what we chose to tackle how the operatives were dealt with (lead) by the supervisors would dramatically affect the outcome (level of success). I decided to ask Phil to run a workshop dealing with man management and continuous improvement techniques. I helped Phil run the workshop and we covered:

• How to manage people?
• Managing teams
• Continuous improvement techniques
  Lean, 8 wastes, 5S
• Where to start?

It was clear that this was the first management training the supervisors had had and through observing the role play and games one of them was streets ahead of the rest (Jock). I decided that it would make sense to build a pilot project round him and his operatives but it still didn’t help with where to apply the techniques.
Having spent some time on the shop floor there was a resource (machine) that always seemed to have material waiting to be processed. This was in Jock’s area and the operations before and after it was also. This resource was surely a constraint of the factory and hence was a good place to start our pilot. There were ten operatives in this area and a good place to start was by briefing them on what we were trying to do and how we wanted to do it. Jock and I got them together and took them through the principles of doing a 5S exercise and our aim:

• Sort – eliminate all unnecessary tools, parts, and instructions making sure the needed ones remaining were accessible.
• Set in order – needed items should be stored and labelled. In doing this due consideration should be given to work flow – those used more frequently being the most easily accessible
• Shine – clean the workspace and equipment. It is imperative that this becomes part of the job rather than an occasional activity when things get too messy
• Standardise – work practices should be consistent and standardised
• Sustain – maintain and review standards. It’s a journey

We explained the aim of the pilot was to improve the flow of material through the resource and the benefit to them was it would become an easier place to work with potential problems visible. They should highlight their ideas for improvements and we assured them the rest of the business (engineering, planning, and quality) had been instructed to support them.
This was Jock’s and his team’s project (developing a new way of working) and as such I visited the area 2/3 times a week. Jock knew he had my support and I’d made it clear that he should let me know if he hit any problems or needed any help. In the first two weeks there was a visible changed in the area – it was amazing how much redundant tools, parts, and instructions there were. The next step was not making the floor the only storage area! Materials were needed for shelving most of which was available in the business. I could see that marking up the required equipment would make it easier if labour had to be moved around. Having ensured the layout of the area ensured good material flow the shine stage was easy and Jock ensured it became part of daily working practice. The area looked completely different and this was aided by visible performance measures (we used the 8 wastes Phil had told us about) and most importantly a white board to record problems that needed addressing, who was responsible for resolution and by when the resolution would be implemented. Jock had implemented a daily briefing session of his team which took place in this area. He reviewed the 8 wastes with his team:

Defects
Over Production
Waiting
Not engaging employees
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Excess Processing

Quite quickly the performance of the area went up – not all due to DOWNTIME – success the queue of material went down. However another measure of success was the interest shown by other areas of the factory about what was going on and the question “when can we do this?” was heard. .
So we had started on our journey of continuous improvement. Whilst some of steps 4 and 5 could be tackled by Jock and his team eventually they would need the involvement of other functions of the business. I also still had this nagging feeling that how we planned the factory had a big part to play in our journey.
As more areas of the shop floor took on board and implemented the techniques it became clear that a long time since my initial briefing session we were well on the way to making a big impression on items 3-6. But we still had a long way to go since some of the items raised hadn’t been tackled yet.

If you want to read more chapters of Carters experiences we’ll include them in future website up dates. We generally plan to do an update once a quarter. If you are too impatient to wait for the next chapters you can obtain the full novel as an e-book by supplying us your details and giving us some feedback.
Send your request to enquiries@emseff.co.uk

Written by EMS