September 30, 2016 Industry Forum Blog Autonomous Maintenance, Coca-Cola Beverages, JIPM, JIPM award, Panasonic, Policy Deployment, Tetra Pak, Total Productive Maintenance, TPM What do we have to do to make sure our investment in TPM pays off? How can we ensure we reap the promised business benefits? We can’t give you a magic wand that ensures instant results. But we can share with you these three vital activities practised by JIPM award winning companies, such as Coca-Cola Beverages, Panasonic and Tetra Pak. You will notice a common denominator for all three; time. TPM is not something that can be implemented overnight. Organisations take five years and more to even become eligible for the first level of awards. The good news is that it doesn’t take that long for the performance benefits to start accruing. The sooner you start your pilot activities the sooner you can see a difference and improve your bottom line. 1. Obtain commitment from the very top It’s no coincidence that the very first step on the 12 step journey is called “Declaration by management”. The senior management team must first understand the reasons their company is embarking on this journey. And then they must communicate their intention to the entire workforce. We have seen how companies who don’t start here take much longer to get results. Even the best efforts prove difficult to sustain and at worst the programme just fizzles out. 2. Integrate TPM activities into your company’s policy and strategy Companies that are serious about using TPM to continuously improve their business performance, integrate it into their existing Policy Deployment plans. In fact this is the focus of the work in step 4 of the 12 step journey. Think of it as a two pronged approach to support achievement of: Daily performance targets derived from customer requirements. Stretch goals derived from the annual policies. Treating TPM as a set of activities additional to your short term or long term targets, dooms them to being side lined when the going gets tough. You may have already experienced this scenario. You put a lot of time and effort into training your production associates in Autonomous Maintenance (AM). Once the production plan is complete the teams stop and move onto their AM work. Initially output and quality improve and unplanned downtime is reducing. AM works! Then one Friday you haven’t met the plan, so you keep manufacturing. Maybe your order book is increasing or you had a particularly unusual and lengthy breakdown. What we find is that if this happens regularly, the benefits of the TPM programme become forgotten and production output at all costs is the priority. The TPM activities cease over time, morale decreases and people become resistant to new initiatives. Instead of treating TPM as a set of bolt on activities, integrate it. Specifically target use of the tools to prevent that breakdown happening again and to increase capacity over time. The tools need to become part of daily working, not something scheduled for the end of the week. This applies at the shop floor as much as it does the boardroom. 3. Include every single person in the organisation In a previous blog we learned that the main aim of TPM is to achieve zero losses. These losses can occur in every function and at every level within your business. So to root out every loss you need to involve people from every function and at every level. When only a proportion of the workforce are involved we always find losses and, of course, the costs associated with them. If you want to find out more about the future of TPM, it’s integration with Industry 4.0 and how it can help your organisation reduce costs and improve quality then make sure book your place at Industry Forum’s TPM seminar. This one-day event will allow you to learn from world-class, award winning manufacturers alongside speakers from the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance. If you want to speak to a member of the team to find out more about TPM and how Industry Forum can support your TPM implementation give us a call on +44 (0)121 717 6600 complete our enquiry form or email us at [email protected]
September 22, 2016 Industry Forum Blog cloud based technology, Computerised Maintenance Management System, Connected factories, digital factories, fourth industrial revolution, Internet of Things, predictive maintenance, preventative maintenance, vibration analysis The connected factory drums up images of fully automated, high tech, integrated plant with barely a human in sight. That doesn’t quite chime with scenes of people walking round plants and plugging hand held devices into various pieces of equipment. So, what is the future of CBM (Condition Based Monitoring or Maintenance) in our digital factories? Will we still need to stand beside our plant and plug in portable vibration analysis kit? Or take thermographic images with hand held cameras? Let’s start with the need for CBM. Will there still be a need for Condition Based Monitoring? Our factories of the future will still contain equipment that moves or is powered electrically. This means certain components will be subject to wear and if left to run without intervention, will eventually breakdown. CBM is one strand of predictive maintenance. It typically uses equipment based diagnostics to monitor and diagnose conditions of both moving and static equipment. You may already use, or be familiar with, techniques such as vibration analysis, tribology, thermography or acoustic analysis. When the condition being monitored reaches a determined level a repair or replacement is carried out. Compared to preventative maintenance time based interventions, CBM allows you to get the most life possible out of your components. So unless we invent materials that will never wear out, we will still have a need for CBM techniques. The next question is what will those techniques be? Will Condition Based Monitoring change? History suggests it will. CBM techniques have actually been around longer than we may think. But as our equipment has developed so have the techniques we use to monitor it. The first industrial revolution bought us steam locomotives and with it the CBM technique of wheel tapping. Wheeltappers were employed to walk along the train and tap each wheel with a long-handled hammer. A wheel with flaws or cracks doesn’t make the same ring as an undamaged one! Now at the start of the fourth industrial revolution, steam has been replaced by diesel and electric, the wheel design has changed and wheeltappers have been replaced by ultrasonic testing. (Except on a few eastern European railways!) So what’s next? The falling cost and size of sensors, coupled with developments in wireless technology, is making it more realistic for sensors to be permanently located. Look how different this wireless vibration analysis sensor is to the hand held device pictured earlier. Permanently mounted sensors mean a greater amount of data is collected, which results in a more detailed and accurate analysis. Initially this data has been analysed by software in plant based PC’s. However the growth in cloud based technologies and the Internet of Things is now enabling analysis of extremely large volumes of data across multiple plants. So we are now entering an era of data driven CBM where a whole host of predictive analytics packages are available. And cost is not the barrier it once was. You can start small with just a few sensors and scale over time by adding more. Data can be monitored live in house as well as sent direct for remote analysis. Information on the best time for interventions to prevent failures and minimise downtime is returned to the plant. In short, maintenance teams can use the enhanced analytical capability provided by the new technologies to boost the power of CBM and their Computerised Maintenance Management Systems. You could argue that CBM will become more relevant in our digital factories as we strive to improve output and efficiency, meet changing customer demands and increasing our profit margins. Industry Forum’s one-day seminar: TPM Towards 2025 and Integration with Industry 4.0 features a packed programme of keynote speakers from world-class award winning manufacturers and includes the topic of TPM in the Connected Factory.
September 16, 2016 Industry Forum Blog Arcelor Mittal, Early Management pillar, Health and Environment pillar, JIPM, lean, Milliken, Safety, sustainable continuous improvement, Tetra Pak, Toyota Production System, Unilever, Volvo If you want your company to succeed over the long term you must; operate safely, make a profit and achieve customer satisfaction. For companies like Tetra Pak, Milliken, Arcelor Mittal, Unilever and Volvo, TPM has become their corporate approach to sustainable continuous improvement. This blog briefly describes how TPM achieves those goals and what makes it different from other improvement frameworks. Achieving your business goals The main aim of TPM is to achieve zero losses. This means zero accidents, zero defects and zero breakdowns. 1. Operating safely. As well as having a specific set of activities, called the Safety, Health and Environment pillar, devoted to achieving zero accidents, the principles for preventing accidents are ingrained in every single TPM activity and resulting operating process. Zero accidents are possible and in some fields yield added benefits. Many companies in the chemical industry who practise TPM are rewarded with reduced insurance premiums! 2. Making a profit. Each of the 8 pillars of TPM concentrates on eliminating losses and their associated costs. Sustainably reducing costs, not just reducing capacity, results in increased profit. It’s not unusual to achieve 30% reduction in manufacturing costs, 50% reduction in inventories and improvement in Overall Equipment Performance of 150-200%. Losses are not just pursued in manufacturing, but across all the functions of your business and throughout the supply chain. 3. Achieving customer satisfaction. As well as meeting the customer’s quality, cost and delivery expectations, TPM addresses the total product life cycle. Activities for pre-empting losses not only in design and manufacture but for the customer during use and at end of life disposal are examined in the Early Management pillar. What makes it different? I can almost hear you shouting, “Hang on – I can do all that with lean, or the Toyota Production System”. And yes, you could achieve very similar results if you rigorously pursue the elimination of all waste. In fact there are huge areas of overlap in the application, tools and techniques used in the approaches. However, here are TPM’s distinguishing features. It’s all presented in one organised framework Every single recommended step to successfully deploy TPM is detailed in the JIPM 12 steps. As you can see it takes you from preparing your company for the journey, through the ordered deployment of the 8 pillars, to attaining regular application. The level of detail in each of the 12 steps, and within each pillar, can initially seem off-putting. But this detail addresses many of the problems encountered if the lean tools and techniques are applied in an ad-hoc manner. Senior management buy in Inclusion of middle managers Sustainability of results Provision of adequate resources Clear direction and link to company strategy Clear structures, roles and responsibilities for every employee The goal of zero losses From the outset, the goal is zero losses, as opposed to lean approaches that focus on closing the gap between actual and desired performance. This results in a subtle difference in approach. To achieve zero condition you need to: Transition from a data driven reactive approach to close the gap, to a proactive approach that prevents losses from happening in the first place. Support your activities with detailed understanding of what causes all forms of loss and a very detailed understanding of each of your processes. If you stick with the 12 step plan and follow the structure of each pillar, you will be guided through the layers of complexity. It does take years of dedication to approach zero losses, but those who have persevered are reaping the rewards. If you want to find out more about the future of TPM, it’s integration with Industry 4.0 and how it can help your organisation reduce costs and improve quality then make sure book your place at Industry Forum’s TPM seminar event. The one-day event will allow you to learn from world-class, award winning manufacturers alongside speakers from the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance. See full event flyer here If you want to speak to a member of the team to find out more about TPM and how Industry Forum can support your TPM implementation give us a call on +44 (0)121 717 6600 complete our enquiry form or email us at [email protected]
August 24, 2016 Industry Forum Blog 16949, Automtive Quality Management Standards, Global automotive sector standard, iatf, iatf 16949:2016, iso, iso/ts16949, iso/ts16949:2009, ts16949 One of the most widely used global quality management standards in the automotive sector has been rewritten. So if you’re one of the 65,000 ISO/TS 16949:2009 certificate holders or 2,000 qualified auditors, here is what you need to know up front. What has changed? 1. The standard has a new name – IATF 16949:2016. This supersedes and replaces ISO/TS 16949:2009. So it has evolved from a technical specification to a global automotive sector standard. Although it will continue to be closely aligned with ISO standards, the new document is now managed solely by the International Automotive Task Force (IATF). This means that the IATF can update the standard on a more regular basis, ensuring it stays relevant to the sector’s needs. In fact this version has incorporated extensive feedback from a range of stakeholders, including Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, certification bodies and auditors. This ensures it is tailored exactly to the industry’s requirements. 2. The standard has a new structure. The rewrite follows the new high level structure used for all ISO management system standards. In addition to the 10 standard sections, the IATF have included an Automotive Annexe. The idea is to provide sources of information that you can consider as you refine your management systems. Important dates 3. IATF 16949:2016 will be available to purchase from 1st October 2016. You will be able to buy a full copy from one of the 5 IATF National Association members. Details for each IATF Oversight Office can be found on their website. 4. To support the new standard, IATF will release the “Rules for achieving and maintaining IATF recognition” on 1st November 2016. 5. If you currently have a certificate to ISO/TS 16949:2009, it will no longer be valid after 14th September 2018. 6. You can still have your first certification to ISO/TS 16949:2009 until 1st October 2017. However your certificate will only be valid until 14th September 2018. Transition 7. You can transition to the new standard at your regularly scheduled surveillance or recertification audit. However, this must be done by 14th September 2018 at the latest. After this date you will no longer be certified as ISO will withdraw ISO/TS 16949:2009. All the transition details can be found in the IATF 16949 Transition Strategy document. (Click on the Revision Workgroup News tab.) In the meantime all Certification Body Auditors will have to go through a requalification process in order for them to be able to certify organisations to the new standard. You can find out more on 6th September by signing up for our FREE webinar, hosted by Rob Brown, the SMMT IATF Oversight Manager. This will be a great opportunity to understand and seek clarification on the timescales for release and details around the transition process.
August 17, 2016 Industry Forum Blog Autonomous Maintenance, improve production efficiency, Planned Maintenance, Rio Olympics, Total Productive Maintenance, TPM, Training and Education Both the Autonomous Maintenance and Planned Maintenance pillars of Total Productive Maintenance are used to improve production efficiency. The pillars are both centred on improving or upskilling the people so that they can improve the equipment. What you will discover when you start to deploy these pillars is that they both rely heavily on the same few people. This can be difficult to overcome. Which pillar comes first? Who takes the lead? The smoothest approach is realised when the teams work together and alternate the lead. To help explain this let’s use a sporting analogy. The Team Pursuit In this endurance cycling event the team of 4 cyclists on the track take turns in the lead in a bid to get 3 of the team over the line in the fastest time. Check out the action at the Rio Olympics, where Team GB won gold in both the men’s and women’s events. The key to winning an endurance race is the reduction of aerodynamic drag However it’s not just the cyclists that make up the team. There are also trainers, bike designers and physiotherapists. All have a contribution to make. Designers reduce the weight of the bikes and improve the aerodynamics. They are constantly trying new materials and technologies. Trainers and physios work on getting the cyclists to peak fitness in time for each event and also, with the riders, work on the best sitting position to maximise power and reduce drag. Cyclists take turns in the lead. The riders in the slipstream can travel at the same speed but as there is less drag they expend less effort. The deployment of Autonomous Maintenance and Planned Maintenance in order to improve production efficiency and achieve the goal of zero breakdowns is very much an endurance event. As well as making use of new technologies, materials and methods, both teams require training in the best techniques. This is where taking the lead in different activities as well as utilising the support of other pillar teams becomes vital. Working together to change the mix of skills and activities undertaken by each team allows both teams to move to a more proactive way of working. Initially the Planned Maintenance team provide technical assistance to the Autonomous Maintenance teams to help them eliminate forced deterioration. The Training and Education pillar provides support here. This results in in less urgent breakdowns and failure intervals become stabilised. The Planned Maintenance team can now utilise the generated time to do corrective maintenance. This further lengthens the life of the equipment. As equipment becomes more reliable the Planned Maintenance teams can start to train the Autonomous Maintenance teams in general inspection techniques. The Autonomous Maintenance teams now move from preventing forced deterioration to monitoring natural deterioration. As the Autonomous Maintenance teams reduce the time to do their cleaning, inspection and lubrication (CIL) activities, they release time for further development. The Autonomous Maintenance teams to learn more about the materials being handled and enhance their skills in making correct adjustments and settings. Both teams can now move onto activities to build a periodic maintenance system. As the lifetime of the equipment extends further the Planned Maintenance teams generate time for training in predictive maintenance skills and exploring the use of new materials, methods and technologies. You can read more about how to change the mix of skills and activities undertaken by the Autonomous Maintenance and Planned Maintenance teams here. Or contact the IF team for more information on any aspect of Total Productive Maintenance.
August 11, 2016 Industry Forum Blog lean manufacturing, Olympic rowing Eights, Oxford and Cambridge boat race, Takt Time Takt is a German word meaning beat or rate. We can see this in action; in the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race or the Olympic rowing Eights. The cox calls the stroke, or beat, which co-ordinates the power and the rhythm of the rowers. To win you need to get the rhythm or pace right throughout the different stages of the race. In manufacturing we co-ordinate the rhythm or pace at which we produce parts using takt time. It is defined as: “The rate at which you need to produce products in order to satisfy customer demand.” Why do we use takt time? To “win” in manufacturing we need to make exactly what the customer wants, when they want it. This is the first principal when creating a lean manufacturing system. If we make less, the customer is not happy. If we make more, then we are over producing and create inventory. These are wastes and cost us money. Takt time helps us to make the quantity required by the customer at just the right time to keep inventory to a minimum. How do we set takt time? We can work out what our takt time needs to be by using two key pieces of information and this formula. Takt time = Time available for running the process Customer demand The customer always sets the demand. The manufacturer sets the amount of time available. It is equal to the total available time minus planned downtime. See the worked example. In high volume manufacturing plants, like car assembly plants, takt time is usually expressed in seconds. Longer units of time are used if the processes are particularly lengthy, like assembling an aircraft wing. Tip: Don’t confuse takt time with cycle time or throughput time. What if cycle time is greater than takt time? You’ve worked out your takt time is 20 seconds, however it takes 80 seconds to make the whole part. There are 2 options. Have a number of identical stations producing the same part. In this case you would need 4 to meet customer demand (=80/20). Split the manufacturing down into a series of smaller stages. Carry each stage out on a different station before passing it on to the next. The total time for the work at each stage can be no longer than your takt time. Think of it in terms of the rowing. The race takes more than 1 stroke of the oars to complete. But each individual stroke, at the required beat, moves the boat closer to the finish line. Each of your manufacturing stations is equivalent to one stroke of the oars. You can visualise the part moving from station to station until it reaches finished goods by clicking on the image below. Tip: Find a way to let people know if they are working to takt time. If we are left to our own devices it is very easy to either, go faster and overproduce, or too slowly and miss delivery. If you don’t have a fixed speed production line, where the part automatically moves out of your work zone, then investigate a visual method to indicate your actual output versus the target output. For more information on how to calculate takt time for your plant and use it as part of your unique lean system contact the Industry Forum team today.
August 3, 2016 Industry Forum Blog Ashley McKenzie, continuous improvement, Cool Runnings, Dick Fosbury, Fosbury, Fosbury flop, improvement, improvement cycle, Jamaican bobsledding team, Olympic athletes, Olympics, Sir Dave Brailsford, Spirit of improvement The mind set we use for successful improvement is one that our Olympic athletes demonstrate year in, year out. These 5 spirits of improvement apply whether we are running a kaizen activity or carrying out our daily jobs. Spirit 1. Challenge all the fixed ideas. We often find it difficult to break out of a long held habit or way of doing things. But unless we can challenge our fixed ideas in a positive way, we will never move forwards. This is exactly what Dick Fosbury did in the 1960’s. To help him jump higher he challenged the existing straddle technique. The resulting “Fosbury Flop” is now used by all the elite high jumpers. Fosbury also demonstrated the next spirit. Spirit 2. Do it now! No excuses. It is tempting to put off implementing a solution until it is perfect. The problem is you may never get round to doing it. Try out an improvement idea immediately. Even if it means mocking it up to prove it works before investing. Fosbury experimented over a number of years. First he tried the scissor kick before gradually adjusting his technique. He persisted, despite criticism for his style, and his results kept improving. End result – gold in the 1968 Olympics. Spirit 3. Use your wisdom, not money! You can always make initial improvements without having to spend. The trick is to think of ways to modify what is currently done. Then, try out your ideas by mocking up a solution. When you get it to work then you can invest. I couldn’t resist using the example of the Jamaican bobsledding team here. This tropical nation first competed in the Winter Olympics in 1998. While I found no proof that they practiced using a bath tub and a refrigerated van, as in the film Cool Runnings, it is true that they borrowed other team’s spare sleds. After 7 games appearances, in 2014 they appointed their own experienced coach, having started with support and advice from other bobsledders at the games. Spirit 4. Get to the root cause by asking why? – 5 times. The key to solving problems is to use a logical approach and get to the root cause of the problem. It’s no good applying a sticking plaster to the symptom. One way to do this is to keep asking “why?” until the root cause is established. I didn’t find any examples of Olympians using Problem Solving techniques, please share any you find. However, one of Team GBs current hopefuls sums up the perseverance required to make this technique work. Ashley McKenzie, who competes in the 60kg Judo category says “I am arguing all day, until you tell me I am right.” Spirit 5. Improvement is infinite, better is not good enough. This reminds us that the improvement cycle never stops. If you sit back after you have made 1 improvement then the competition will overtake you. All our athletes demonstrate this, however, Sir Chris Brailsford summed it up best, “Sport is about continuous improvement, it’s about getting better. It’s about being better next year than you are this year.” His cycling teams examine every single aspect of their sport and try to increase each one by even 1%. These all add up to give significant advantages. He adds “We’ve got to keep looking, researching and working – trying things. And that’s what it’s all about.” Contact our team to find out how Industry Forum can help improve your manufacturing competitiveness today.
July 27, 2016 Industry Forum Blog British Cycling, continuous improvement, Hoshin Kanri, How to lead, leadership style, leadership techniques, Olympics, Policy Deployment, Sir Dave Brailsford, Team Sky, Tour de France If you are seeking leadership techniques to get the best from your team, look no further than Sir Dave Brailsford, Principal for Team Sky. Team Sky crossed the finish line for the 2016 Tour de France with arms linked. Their 4th win in 5 years. Prior to this Brailsford was performance director for the British Cycling Olympic team. They built their medal haul from 2 in 2004, to lead the 2008 table with 8 golds. They repeated this feat at the 2012 Olympics. Between 2003 and 2013 British cyclists across disciplines as diverse as road, track, BMX and mountain bike racing won 59 World Championships. When he said “Sport is about continuous improvement, it’s about getting better” I realised he would have some good lessons for those of us leading our own business improvement teams. I’ve compiled these top 4 tips from interviews and articles about Brailsford’s leadership style. 1. Start with a clear vision and understand how to win Is your vision and goal compelling? Is your stated goal to win or just finish the race, maybe in a better place than last year? What effect will a wishy-washy goal have on your team? Will they be committed and accountable for their actions? Probably not. Each of Brailsford’s cycling teams’ starts by defining what winning looks like. They then work back and create a plan to get them there. Everybody in the team, not just the cyclists, have a clear role and tasks to accomplish. This is the crux of Policy Deployment, the technique we use in business to point everyone in the organisation in the same direction and navigate them to the desired end point. It’s also known as Hoshin Kanri. 2. Do the simple things excellently On the rare occasions where Brailsford’s team have not been successful he has analysed what went wrong. After the 2010 Tour de France he is reported as saying they concentrated on the peas rather than the steak. By this he meant they focussed on the clever touches rather than the basics of performance. This is just as true when leading improvement programmes. If you don’t concentrate on maintaining the basic standard created by deploying the foundation tools, you won’t have a stable base for the clever techniques to further enhance performance. 3. Behavioural change only comes from within Brailsford believes that you can’t force change on an individual. He states that change in behaviour will usually only happen when either the suffering is great enough or the reward big enough! That doesn’t mean you have to make people suffer to want to change. Remember the tale of the team and the newt. What he means is find what makes each individual want to improve and as leader, tailor your messages accordingly. 4. Give ownership and make people feel genuinely valued By creating the right culture for individuals to flourish Brailsford believes you get 30% more. He uses a coaching style and gets teams to create their own rules. The opportunity to influence the group improves buy in and individual engagement. These are just a few of the ways in which Brailsford prepares his team to win and continue winning. The good news is that they are all directly transferable to our teams at work. Examine your leadership techniques and see if you can benefit from a blend of Brailsford and business improvement techniques. If you would like to know more about Leadership and management for manufacturers, why not check out our Leadership Development Programme?
July 20, 2016 Industry Forum Blog F1, Hamilton, machine changeovers, Mercedes, Rosberg, Silverstone 2106, SMED, SMED the lean technique, standardised procedure, waste elimination Silverstone 2016 saw the second race of the season start under the control of the safety car. But rather than being dull, it initiated a breathtaking series of pit stops as the whole field changed from wet to intermediate tyres within a few minutes of each other. At one point, you could actually see both Hamilton and Rosberg, the Mercedes team mates, in the pits at the same time. Blink and you would have missed two perfectly executed, full tyre changes with no waiting. Check out the race highlights at around the 1 minute mark. Each stop takes about 2 seconds. The fastest ever recorded was at the US Grand Prix in 2013, when Mark Webber’s stop was timed at 1.923s How do they do this? It’s all based on the principles used for SMED; the lean technique we use to reduce the time it takes to change a machine from making one part to another. In F1, the pit stop is the equivalent of the machine downtime. The aim is to get the car back racing as quickly as possible. F1 pit stop tricks we can use in manufacturing Every one hundredth of a second counts on a pit stop. Here are some of the key waste elimination tips the pit crews use. These apply equally to our own machine changeovers. 1) Preparation before the stop is key The whole crew discuss and clarify their targets the night before the race. A few laps before the car pits, the crew receive warning and get into the right mindset. 2) Use precise locations for everything The car drives in and stops in a precisely marked position. This ensures it is jacked straight up with no time lost adjusting positions. 3) Follow a standardised procedure These exist for all common scenarios; wheel change, nose cone replacement, punctures, cleaning rubbish from the air intakes and adjusting the wings to alter downforce. On race day, there is no tinkering with the procedure. Trying different methods and tooling only takes place in controlled sessions back at the factory. 4) Practise, practise, practise The crew practise their set procedures as a team and individuals practise specific skills. The crew on the high speed air guns practise getting on the nut first time. The jack men practise clean lifts. The drivers practise stopping exactly on the marks. 5) Adapt the equipment The most frequently damaged parts are designed with quick changeovers is mind. On the nose cone, a quick release catch is used instead of multiple sets of time consuming bolts. The front and rear jacks have quick release levers as no powered device can be used. The front jack also has a swivel feature that enables the jack man to move out of the way quicker, speeding up car release. 6) Never stop looking for waste The length of time for F1 pit stops has changed drastically over the years. In this video from the 1950s, it took 67 seconds to change 4 wheels and add fuel. In the 1990s, when refuelling was still allowed, pit stops had shrunk to 7 seconds. Gone were the men appearing leisurely with wheels in their hands and removing them with hefty belts of a hammer. This table shows how the four step technique helped achieve this reduction. Even since the refuelling ban, the wheel change element has reduced from 4s to 2s. Your challenge: Incorporate these tips into the four step technique to further improve your own changeover times. – July 2016 authored by a Senior Consultant at Industry Forum Update Reviewing this very interesting article, one thing struck me, and the title explains it – the word ‘How’. As an Engineer, I often find myself diving into the detail – How does this work? How to do that? Perhaps though, we should start with asking Why? Why reduce changeover times? What is the benefit? With the F1 example, it was all about saving time in the pits in order to complete the race distance in the shortest time possible. But in manufacturing, the driving need (if you will pardon the pun) is different. By changing over in a shorter time, you can use the time saved to….do more changeovers! Why? Because by changing over more frequently, you can afford to produce smaller batch runs (as a shorter time will elapse before you will be making the same part again), and that’s a big benefit! Why? Because the shorter the batch run, the less inventory you will have to hold. If you make a part once a week, you have to make a batch big enough to cover the whole week’s demand. If you can be slick enough to changeover and make the same part twice a week, the batch size only needs to cover half the week – so the inventory carrying aspect quantity halves. If you can make a batch every day of a 5-day week, you’re down to one fifth of the cycle stock. That reduces risk (obsolescence, carrying costs, and quality issues) and releases cash. In manufacturing terms, that’s a race worth winning… If you want to understand more about lean techniques, visit our Lean Transformation page or click here to get in touch with Principal Lean Consultant, Mike Scull. You can also give us a call on +44 (0)121 717 6600.
July 14, 2016 Industry Forum Blog Scary statement! You have never done and finished with 5S. This lean tool is used not only to carry out an initial workplace organisation activity, but should become part of your daily routine. 5S, also known as 5C, is the 5 step technique that organises, maintains and improves any workplace so that it is safe and supports sustainable quality, cost and delivery performance. For you to get these essential business benefits you need to ensure that it is not just a one off activity. And if you are struggling with this, be assured you are not alone. Even world class plants can on occasion struggle to maintain what we call the 5S standard. About 15 years ago a colleague visited the Honda plant near Swindon, and was amazed when the person in charge apologised for their 5S standard! While they may have been in the middle of introducing a new model on the line, they still did not see that as a valid excuse for any lapse. At the other end of the country, Nissan don’t actually practise 5S. They have 3S! This is because they have ingrained the technique so deeply in their culture and daily work routines that they no longer list the last two steps. So how do we achieve this? You must start from a solid foundation. Let’s assume that you have already followed best practice to the letter (see our 5S guide). You have conducted the initial 3S activity to set and maintain a standard. The employees in the area have created and use simple 5S checklists. You and your team regularly find ways to further improve on that standard; the 4th step Standardise. You come up with modifications to make it easier or quicker to maintain the condition. And you identify re-occurring abnormal conditions from the Red Tag Log and countermeasure these to prevent re-occurrence. Step 5 – Sustain The aim of this step is for the technique to become custom and practise throughout the whole organisation. Here are my top 7 tips on how to achieve this Ensure you apply the technique in every department. Involve every member of staff, not just in the training but in the practical application as well. Include 5S training in the induction programme for every employee, no matter what level. Define each individual’s 5S responsibilities as part of their job description. Be consistent in your application. Don’t abandon 5S because of work pressures (remember Honda). Always provide the time and equipment for people to conduct their responsibilities. Don’t have special clean ups or hide things for visitors – this completely undermines and devalues the technique. Encourage staff from the area to show visitors round and explain the 5S standard. People take more ownership when they can express pride in what they do. Use a layered audit system to provide rigorous reinforcement of the importance of maintaining the standard. 5S is one of the foundation improvement tools. These are used to stabilise performance of the workplace and achieve customer satisfaction. Let it slip and it will undermine any other improvements you try and make, as well as affecting performance. At the workplace use your daily checksheets. Get these checked weekly by area leaders. Review prevention measures monthly. Have senior managers assess the spirit of deployment on a quarterly basis. Get them to ask probing questions. If you need additional help in ensuring 5S works for you then please contact the IF team.
