Shoplogix Machine Truth Blog

Employee engagement in OEE. It is critical to sustainability.

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Mistake proofing, or poke yoke, is commonly known as a technique for ensuring an assembly process is done in the correct manner however there are other "mistakes" that happen on the shop floor with equally serious consequences.

Over production, below-rate run speed, prolonged setup times, material-handling delays, etc. are mistakes that cost a manufacturing organization time and money.

Engaging your employees through the provision of real time machine truth data drives change in the correct direction and shines the light on the real issues impacting performance and profitability, e.g. Downtime, Idle, Setup.

TAKE THE BLINKERS OFF.

Enabling Success with Sustainable Continuous Improvement

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Continuous Improvement Series - Part 1 of 5

Continuous Improvement programs have the potential to yield tremendous benefits when they are first implemented. Companies start down a path of cultural change, introducing programs to enable and empower employees, uncover and eliminate waste. As change occurs the best of the companies going down this path create an ongoing culture of change. They are successfully able to dive deeper into waste and continually eliminate more cost and inefficiency. These successful companies imbed measurement of the impact of CI programs into their day to day management process.

However, for many companies the path to CI is different. A short term gain in productivity and elimination of waste is quickly followed by a period of stalled activity and in some cases reversion back to practice and procedures in place prior to the CI program.

What differentiates the successful CI effort from the others is the sustainability of the changes that are implemented through the CI process. Sustainable CI is achieved when companies do the following two things:

1. Integrate CI measurements into the day to day management of the business.
2. Constant honing and revision of the targets - once success is achieved with one set of targets, a new set should be introduced.

To successfully manage CI day to day companies must have visibility into what is going on in the shop floor and must have the tools to reinforce behaviors that are crucial to sustaining initial success. The foundation for CI success includes:

• Accurate data
• Performance measurement
  
• Engaged employees
• Constantly evolving targets

CI holds much promise for many companies but requires an integrated and focused management effort that enables ongoing management of change.