Continuous Improvement Series – Part 4 of 5

A key determinant of the success of any Continuous Improvement (CI) program is the acceptance and implementation of change by shop floor personnel. Companies face two major problems when creating shop floor change. The first is the buy in of the employees on the floor. The second is creation of systems that help to reinforce the implementation of change on the shop floor. Without creating the reinforcement for behavioral change organizations will not be able to see when change is not occurring.

Provide Visual Cues to Machine Operators

There are several ways to implement systems to reinforce behaviors and engage people . Ideally these sort of systems provide a choice for the employee or operator to make the right decision. Creating this sort of opportunity for input creates an environment where the employee is able to act in a manner consistent with the goals laid out in the CI program.

At the same time it is also important to give visual cues across the organization so that managers can identify where work is going well and where they should pay attention to potential problems.

To achieve both these goals some easily deployed technologies can be used with great effectiveness. The first is to use display boards, local screens or some other feedback loop to let employees and managers know the status of work. Display boards have the advantage of providing status information to all personnel at once. If installed in appropriate locations then both employees and managers can quickly review performance. Screens located at the machine are a good alternative but do lack the broadcast capabilities of display boards.

Whether display board or screen based, how data is presented can determine whether or not employees are properly engaged. Simple tools that can be interpreted with a glance are ideally suited to informing operators and managers of status. The most effective tools are a combination of color and key metrics.

Run rate of a machine is an example of a metric that can be read off a machine and displayed on a board or screen. By adding some colors to indicate trend states in the machine operators can be informed as to the performance of the machine.

Traffic lights create a good common paradigm that is understood across many different cultures. Using red, green and yellow coloring of metrics, like production rate can immediately indicate performance to standards and guide personnel to the right decision to maintain performance. Green can indicate when things are running to standard, Yellow can indicate when the operation is trending out of standard and Red to indicate problems.

Combining colors with publicly mounted display board messages creates an environment where all production personnel can immediately tell whether the work they are doing is performing to standards.

The use of these tools changes the focus on the plant floor, creating the opportunity to leverage accurate machine data in real time alerts that an operator can instantly understand so that the correct decisions can be made to ensure efficient and profitable operation.