Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

LEAN CONNECTIONS Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively PP7374_C000.indd 1 5/3/08 2:27:03 PM PP7374_C0...

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LEAN CONNECTIONS Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

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LEAN CONNECTIONS Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

CHRIS HARRIS RICK HARRIS

Boca Raton London New York

CRC Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

A PRODUCTIVITY PRESS BOOK

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Productivity Press Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 © 2008 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Productivity Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business No claim to original U.S. Government works Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-56327-374-2 (Softcover) This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access www.copyright.com (http://www.copyright.com/) or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users. For organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by the CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harris, Chris, 1976Lean connections : making information flow efficiently and effectively / Chris Harris and Rick Harris. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-56327-374-2 (alk. paper) 1. Production control. 2. Communication in management. I. Harris, Rick, 1953 Aug. 2- II. Title. TS157.H37 2008 658.5--dc22

2008012562

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the Productivity Press Web site at http://www.productivitypress.com

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Contents 1

Getting Started................................................................................... 1 The Three Flows of Production......................................................................... 4 Information Flow............................................................................................. 4 Material Flow................................................................................................... 5 People Flow..................................................................................................... 5 Meet RNA Manufacturing................................................................................... 6 Basic Information Flow: The A3........................................................................11 The A3 Illustrated.......................................................................................... 12 Benefits of the A3......................................................................................... 18 Now You Can Begin..........................................................................................19 Key Points..........................................................................................................19

2

The Level Production Schedule........................................................ 21 Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information?....................................... 24 Getting Started with the Schedule.................................................................... 26 Getting the Order from the Customer.......................................................... 27 Are Forecasts Always Correct?...................................................................... 27 Takt Time Is Not Enough: Leveling the Production Schedule........................ 28 What Is a Level Schedule?............................................................................. 28 What Is the Mechanism for Storing the Level Schedule?..............................31 Who Is Responsible for Getting the Level Schedule to the Production Floor?.......................................................................... 33 Storing the Schedule on the Production Floor................................................. 35 Key Points......................................................................................................... 36

3

Making Information Flow Upstream................................................ 39 Information Overview...................................................................................... 39 RNA Begins Its Implementation of Internal Information Flow................... 43 Product Has Been Pulled from the WIP Market … Now What?..................... 45 Sizing the WIP Market.................................................................................. 46 In What Order Should the Products Run?.................................................... 49

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How Do You Make This Information Flow?.................................................... 50 Lean Connections............................................................................................. 53 Key Points......................................................................................................... 55

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Purchasing and Information Flow.................................................... 57 Information Overview...................................................................................... 57 Information Flow and the Purchasing Department at RNA............................ 60 Using a Purchased Parts Market to Make Information Flow....................... 62 Information Flow from Production to Purchasing....................................... 64 Information Flow from Purchasing to Production: PFEP............................ 66 Putting It All Together...................................................................................... 68 Key Points......................................................................................................... 68

5

Making Quality Information Flow.................................................... 69 Information Overview...................................................................................... 70 The Andon System............................................................................................ 73 How Does RNA Make This Concept Work for Its Production System?...... 75 Implementing Andon.................................................................................... 76 Quality Control Alarm Limits....................................................................... 76 Purchased Parts............................................................................................. 78 The Andon System and Information Flow....................................................... 78 Key Points......................................................................................................... 78

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Making Uptime Information Flow.................................................... 79 Information Overview...................................................................................... 79 The First Step to Maintenance Information Flow............................................ 82 Andon Systems and Maintenance................................................................. 83 Information Flow at the Machine..................................................................... 83 Key Points......................................................................................................... 85

7

Information at the Process Level...................................................... 87 Information Overview...................................................................................... 87 Developing Standardized Work........................................................................ 90 The Best Method for Getting Standardized Work to the Production Floor......94 Placement of Standardized Work.................................................................. 94 Combining Standard Processes to Develop a Standard Area...................... 97 How Often Should Standardized Work Be Revised?................................... 99 Standardized Work as a Foundation to Make Information Flow.................. 100 Key Points....................................................................................................... 100

8

Information at the Team Level.........................................................101 Information Overview.....................................................................................101 A Good Method for Getting the Expectations to the Floor: The PSB...........104 Side One of the PSB.....................................................................................105 Expectations Per Hour.............................................................................105 Supervisor Data....................................................................................... 106 Management Time Frame........................................................................107

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Side Two of the PSB.................................................................................... 108 Safety Chart..............................................................................................109 Quality Chart............................................................................................109 Making Schedule (Compliance to Kanban) Chart...................................109 Uptime Tracking.......................................................................................110 The Continuous Improvement Side of the PSB..........................................111 What Are the Physical Dimensions of the PSB?..............................................111 Key Points........................................................................................................113 9

Auditing...........................................................................................115 Information Overview..................................................................................... 115 Developing an Audit........................................................................................118 6S Audit........................................................................................................118 Standardized Work Audit.............................................................................118 Timed Delivery Route and Market Audit.....................................................119 Having the Audit Form Is Not Enough.......................................................... 120 Conducting the 6S Audit............................................................................. 120 A System to Audit Standardized Work........................................................122 Auditing the Material Delivery Route..........................................................123 Posting the Audits........................................................................................123 Key Points........................................................................................................124

10 The Glass Wall................................................................................ 125 Information Overview.....................................................................................125 Understanding the Glass Wall........................................................................ 128 Step 1: Choose a Place................................................................................ 128 Step 2: Establish a Look.............................................................................. 128 Step 3: What Information Is Needed...........................................................129 Current to Future State....................................................................................131 Measuring Production Status of the Value Stream..........................................133 Safety............................................................................................................133 Quality..........................................................................................................133 Plant Controllable Cost............................................................................... 134 Delivery....................................................................................................... 134 Uptime......................................................................................................... 134 Inventory..................................................................................................... 134 Floor Space...................................................................................................135 Pulling It All Together..................................................................................135 The Glass Wall Is Not Enough....................................................................... 136 Discipline Is the Key........................................................................................137 Key Points....................................................................................................... 138 References............................................................................................. 139 Index......................................................................................................141

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Authors Chris Harris is one of the new breed of Lean thinkers and a coauthor of the Shingo Prize Award-winning book Making Materials Flow, published by Jim Womack and the Lean Enterprise Institute. He has also coauthored a book with Rick Harris on Human Resources’ role in lean manufacturing entitled Developing a Lean Workforce, published by Productivity Press. He began his Lean Manufacturing training as a team member on the assembly line at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK). While at TMMK he was taught by the professionals the proper use of takt time, standardized work, the utilization of Andon Boards and the Andon system. Dr. Harris continued his lean training at Toyota Tsusho America in Georgetown, Kentucky, and gained valuable hands-on experience in returnable containers, Kanban card systems, supermarkets, milk runs, and lean pricing. He realized the need to become knowledgeable in the implementation of lean manufacturing in a unionized environment, receiving this training as a front line supervisor at Delphi Alternator Division in Anderson, Indiana, a UAW environment. While in this position he gained a keen understanding of what is required to implement lean manufacturing in a unionized environment. From this point Dr. Harris decided to take another avenue and went into corporate purchasing at a tier-one automotive company. In this position he learned the importance of Purchasing’s role in lean manufacturing, and its affect of “Global Purchasing” on the enterprise value stream. Dr. Harris earned a doctor of business administration degree from Anderson University. He is vice president of operations for Harris Lean Systems (www. harrisleansystems.com), and teaches workshops on various topics that assist companies on their Lean journey. He has spoken at the Lean Summit in Poland and is a regular featured speaker for Jim Womack and the Lean Enterprise Institute. Rick Harris, president of Harris Lean Systems, has been helping companies to become lean for the past 14 years. He has had great success helping large and small companies, union and nonunion, to implement their own lean manufacturing system. HLS, Inc. has been instrumental in assisting companies worldwide with major financial improvements, (a plant in New York $42 million in 4 years, a plant in Indiana $32 million in 3 years); he helps to educate executives, plant ix

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x n Authors

managers, and plant staff in the principles of lean manufacturing. Mr. Harris helps with the actual implementation on the shop floor and the education of the workforce. He has pioneered the reverse-flow process to achieve an increase in efficiency of 25%. He has extensive experience in developing new manufacturing layouts that facilitate one-piece flow, operator flexibility, operator engagement, first time-through quality, optimum uptime, and reduced capital investment. Mr. Harris has also coauthored the two Shingo Prize Award-winning books Creating Continuous Flow and Making Materials Flow published by James Womack and the Lean Enterprise Institute. He has also coauthored a third book: Developing a Lean Workforce, published by Productivity Press. He is one of the featured speakers at the Lean Enterprise Institute’s monthly lean conference. Mr. Harris has been a speaker at the University of Michigan Lean Manufacturing Conference for the past 7 years, the Lean Enterprise Institute Summit for the past 3 years, the European Lean Enterprise Institute Summit, the Maynard Forum, the PERA Conference, the Mississippi State Annual Lean Conference the past 2 years, European AME Conference, the AME Conference in Chicago 2002, and the University of Kentucky Lean Leadership Forum the past 3 years. Mr. Harris received his lean training while serving as a manager in assembly at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. During his tenure at TMMK, he continued his lean learning at the Toyota Tsutsumi Assembly Plant in Toyota City, Japan. He was a member of the startup team at TMMK, where he gained extensive knowledge of the Toyota Production System. Prior to his Toyota experience, he spent 15 years with General Motors, where he began as a production operator and progressed through the ranks to become a first line manager (www.harrisleansystems.com).

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Introduction Welcome to Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively. We hope that you find the information in the following pages to be informative and beneficial. This workbook is written with implementation in mind, and we sincerely hope you can use it to employ an efficient system of information flow in your facility.

Why You Need This Book As we go throughout the country helping people put into practice lean production principles based on the Toyota Production System (TPS), we have found a common problem: information flow. We find that many organizations are reasonably consistent about recognizing various forms of waste and utilizing value stream maps to create a picture of what the future state should look like. Other organizations are good at developing stability and creating flow within their manufacturing operations. And still others are good at making material flow efficiently and effectively throughout their facilities. However, even in companies that are good at one or two of these aspects of lean production, the most common problem we see is a lack of good information flow. This book looks to answer the question, “How does a company implementing lean production principles develop systems to effectively make information flow throughout the facility?” Even facilities that have a good materials delivery system, stability, and scheduling can struggle with the best way to effectively link all the various pieces of the lean production puzzle together. This book does just that. This workbook has been developed to help you change the way your organization views information flow. It provides the building blocks of a comprehensive information-flow system, showing you calculations and methods to get the necessary information to the individuals who need it, when they need it. In this book, we ask you many of the same questions that we would ask you if we were standing in your facility. Your challenge is to think about the answers, as well as the changes that need to be made to effectively make information flow through your facility. xi

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What You’ll Find in This Book This book follows RNA Manufacturing, a fictional company, through its implementation of a comprehensive lean production system, which it calls the RNA Production System (RPS). RNA finds itself in the same position in which many companies employing lean production find themselves: RNA has enjoyed many successes, but as it continues its journey toward a lean state, constantly striving to improve its system, the company has come to a point where it realizes it needs to effectively connect the various parts of its RPS. RNA has analyzed the situation and decided that the area in which it is most lacking is an effective information-flow system. This book outlines RNA’s methods and thought processes, with an eye toward developing a system of information flow that links the various parts of its production system. Throughout the book, exercises ask questions about your own production system. These exercises are designed to help you focus on your own facility, asking you to answer some of the same questions that RNA had to answer on its journey.

How This Book Is Organized This book is organized into three sections. The first section (Introduction and Chapter 1) includes this introduction and the first chapter, which explains what information flow is and the most basic form of fostering good information flow, the A3. The second section (Chapters 2 through 6) outlines how to make information flow from the customer through the production floor to the supplier. The third section (Chapters 7 through 10) details a methodology of how to make information flow to and from management to the production floor during dayto-day operations, and also whenever information needs to be transmitted about the progress of lean implementation. This book does that by providing tools and thought processes that you can implement within the four walls of your production facility. The following is an overview of the 10 chapters in this book. NN Chapter 1—Getting Started: This chapter provides details about RNA Manufacturing. These details include RNA’s set-up and various implementation methods. This chapter explains the three flows in manufacturing, with an emphasis on information flow. This chapter then concludes with a description of a well-known tool to make information flow at every level of the facility: the A3 problem-solving format. NN Chapter 2—Making a Level Production Schedule Flow: Chapter 2 addresses an issue with which we have seen many companies struggle: scheduling. Many people understand that there should only be one schedule per value stream, and that the schedule should be level and balanced. Most

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Introduction n xiii

facilities further understand that Production Control (scheduling, planning, Production Control and logistics, and so on) needs to have the responsibility of scheduling the plant. However, when it comes to the details of how to put the schedule together and get it to the production floor, many organizations have problems. The schedule is a very important piece of information flow that must be handled well. This chapter discusses an efficient way to make the schedule flow to the production floor. NN Chapter 3—Connecting the Production Areas through Information Flow: This chapter focuses on how to effectively connect the various production areas in a facility. The information flow sign of choice in a lean manufacturing facility is a kanban card, but what should it look like? Where should it be held? When should it be moved? Who should move it? What does the kanban card actually connect? These questions are answered in this chapter, because it is not enough only to know what kanban cards are and know that they are necessary. Instead, an efficient system needs to be developed to effectively move this information. NN Chapter 4—Making Information Flow from Production to and from Purchasing: What responsibilities does Production have as far as Purchasing is concerned? This chapter identifies how to effectively link the Production organization with the Purchasing organization. Many books talk about Production (especially the extended value stream), but this chapter outlines effective methods of information flow to link Production and Purchasing, both from Production to Purchasing and from Purchasing to Production. NN Chapter 5—Making a Quality Problem Known: Much has been written about the andon system at Toyota. This is a quality control measure that allows any production associate on the production line to stop the line in order to fix a problem. Many organizations want to implement this idea because they realize the importance of quality, but they find that they cannot mimic Toyota’s system because they do not have an assembly line like Toyota’s. Instead, many of the firms implementing lean manufacturing systems operate in manufacturing cells or workstations. So this chapter explains the andon approach made popular by Toyota, and then applies that same methodology to firms that are operating with manufacturing cells or workstations. NN Chapter 6—Making an Uptime Information Flow: It is not enough just to be able to catch and fix quality problems—the machines need to be able to run to make the product. You can find many books about uptime, so this chapter deals only with making information flow from the production floor to the Maintenance department, so that the latter knows there is a problem. The goal we push for is two minutes. This means that when a machine breaks down, we want to have a skilled professional there in less than two minutes, prepared to get the machine up and running. This chapter outlines a way to help make that happen.

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NN Chapter 7—Making Information Flow at the Process Level: After the schedule makes it to the production floor, then what? This chapter helps to answer that question beginning at the process level. The chapter provides the building blocks of an efficient lean manufacturing system. By developing standardized work at the process level, there can be control in the process. Without standards there is variation, and variation in the process makes it difficult to react to customer demand. In short, to effectively react to the schedule given by Production Control, a production process needs to be as reliable as possible. This chapter provides a method of making information flow to the production associates so that they (and management) have standards of how to produce the product in a reliable consistent manner to make the schedule given to them by Production Control. NN Chapter 8—Making Information Flow at the Team Level: A value stream can be made up of many teams of production associates, but many manufacturing companies are not able to track the progress at this level in an immediate and efficient way. Also, many firms ask production associates to meet expectations but do not do a good job of communicating those expectations to them. Finally, most manufacturing firms’ management time frame on the production floor is one day or one shift, versus a lean management time frame of one hour. This chapter addresses all these concerns by providing the three-sided production status board that gives management a way to identify, act upon, and correct problems in a timely fashion. NN Chapter 9—Audits as a Way of Making Information Flow: Audits are an excellent way to make information flow throughout a manufacturing facility, yet many organizations are still not properly auditing their procedures and using that information to improve the facility. We believe the reason for this oversight is twofold. The first reason is that the audits themselves are not designed for the people who are auditing. The second reason is that there is not a system of auditing that provides consistent auditing with continuous improvement in mind. This chapter provides methodology to create an effective auditing system. NN Chapter 10—Lean Connections, Bringing It All Together with the Glass Wall: How is your lean implementation going? What are the improvements currently under way and what is the status? How are the value streams in the facility doing as they pertain to quality, uptime, safety, profitability, and so on? This chapter provides a methodology that helps managers in lean manufacturing organizations answer the preceding questions. The glass wall is an effective way to help manage the facility by taking the various forms of information flow and connecting them in one place. The glass wall is a central place that holds valuable lean implementation and performance information on the value streams in the facility.

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How Each Chapter Is Organized Each chapter starts with the same three questions as they pertain to the particular chapter’s subject. These three questions are as follows. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: How would you assess current information flow in your facility? What is the information flow in your facility?

The exercises in these sections will get at the heart of what each chapter is about. Each chapter is based on a certain part of overall information flow in a production facility, and this question is in place so that when it is answered, the

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information flow described in the chapter is clearly defined. Note that there are lines on which to write under each question, so fill in these lines as you come across each exercise. 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: In your facility, who needs information?

This question is asked because you must understand the customer. Different forms of information are required for different customers. For example, quality information is needed by the Quality department, or maintenance information is needed by the Maintenance department. This section in each chapter identifies the customer of the information flow being discussed.

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3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who is responsible for information flow in your facility?

This is the final question asked at the beginning of each chapter. Its purpose is to identify the person or group that holds and is responsible for the information. For example, a production associate may be the one who knows when there is a quality problem or a maintenance problem (such as when a machine breaks down). The associate holds the responsibility for getting that information to the customer, such as the Quality or Maintenance departments. Is there a system for associates to be able to do that? By answering these three questions at the beginning of each chapter, you begin working with the type of information at hand. You know, by answering three questions, what the information is, who needs it, and who has it. Your charge, then, is to develop a way to make that information flow from those who have it to those who need it in an efficient way that fits into your current production system.

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Where to Begin This workbook was written to give you a step-by-step method for implementing a collection of information-flow tools and linking them together as part of your overall lean production system. The book starts at the customer (as should any lean process). It then follows the process back to Purchasing. It would probably be a good idea to read the book from beginning to end to see how all the information-flow tools connect together, and later return to the chapters that explain the tools you are implementing. However, if you are currently implementing information-flow tools, just jump in wherever you need to. Whatever way you choose to go about using this book, we believe it would be a good idea to complete the exercises in the text. They are set up to get you thinking about your own processes and to put you on the path toward making information flow in your facility. Our advice to anyone implementing lean manufacturing systems is to start now, keep going, go faster, and never stop learning as you implement. Best wishes on your lean journey.

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Chapter 1

Getting Started This chapter provides background information that will be helpful as you read this book. It offers an overview of RNA and the three manufacturing flows in a production facility. It also explains a problem-solving methodology that can be used in a production facility to make information flow at all levels. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: How would you define information in your facility?

1

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Information explains which products to make and when to make them. It can also explain a quality problem—where it came from, the reason for the problem, and the corrective action to make sure that the problem does not happen again. Information can also be a maintenance problem that needs to be addressed— how is the Maintenance department notified, how do we know when a representative from that department will get there to fix the problem, and how do we know when the problem is fixed? How does Purchasing know when to order products? How does management know that processes are being followed? How does management know if the implementation of lean initiatives is on schedule? Granted, the above questions and statements are not all-encompassing, but they can get you started thinking about the different forms of information in your facility. In short, information can be described as “data needed by someone to make a decision that is best for the facility.” 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: In your facility, who needs information?

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Getting Started n 3

If you followed the preceding description of different forms of information, the person or people who need the information could vary a great deal. For example, it could be Quality, Maintenance, Production, Purchasing, and so on. The question of who needs the information is directly related to the type of information. This concept does seem elementary, but as you go through the various forms of information flow in this book, you may find that the answer is not always that simple, and there are times when multiple people and multiple areas need the information. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who is responsible for information flow in your facility? In your facility, is information a useful tool for everyone, or is it controlled tightly by those who have the information, perhaps to give them a sense of importance?

Now that you know there is information and that there are people who need it, you can reasonably ask the next question: “Who has the information?” The information can rest in many different places. However, sometimes the information needed will have to be created; for example, a level production schedule. Because

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4 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

many organizations do not have a level production schedule, the schedule must be developed and made to flow to those who need the information. For a facility to be at its best, information has to flow freely. It cannot be a source of power or importance in an organization. Often times, we find that information is held by a person and let out only on a need-to-know basis. Yet information is often needed by more than just people who receive it. In order for a facility to be at its best, information needs to flow quickly and efficiently to those who need the information.

The Three Flows of Production There are three types of flow in production. The first, likely the most important, and the flow that facilities tend to struggle with most, is information flow. The second type of flow is material flow and the third is people flow.

Information Flow Information flow is a significant hurdle that many organizations face. Whether those companies are implementing lean production or not, organizations have difficulty making information flow effectively in their facilities. In many production facilities, especially those that have been in place a long time, information is withheld in order to give the holder importance, instead of being a way to help the organization. Take, for example, a production supervisor. A production supervisor, whose main job in a mass production facility is to schedule and chase parts, may view his or her production schedule with a sense of importance. If someone wants to know what to run next, that person has to talk to the supervisor. Others in the organization may feel that if they are the only ones who have certain information, they are important to the organization. Take, for example, process knowledge. Many organizations control their process knowledge by passing it from generation to generation. This means that the person who operates the process now will train the person who will do the process next. This may sound good, but the problem is that they are the only two people who know how to do the process. When they are gone on vacation, for example, the facility does not run very well. The method for running a production process should not be a secret; instead it should be knowledge that is easy to acquire and improve. Another information flow hurdle is in the form of metric information that management receives. Many times, management does not get necessary information until it is too late. Good information flow gives management the tools they need to ask the right questions. For example, receiving only a quarterly report means that three months go by without new information. Furthermore, the information received may have little to do with lean implementation or day-to-day operations. Metric information flow is important to management because it can provide them the tools they need to make decisions for the facility. Metric information, as a rule, needs to measure what you need it to measure, be correct, be timely, and be easily accessible.

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Getting Started n 5

Information flow can be described in many ways, but the best way we have found to assess how a facility’s information flows is to ask questions. For example: NNDoes everyone on the production floor know their hourly target? NNDoes everyone know what to do if they have a quality problem? NNDoes everyone know what to do if they have a maintenance issue? NNDo supervisors know how their area is running right now? NNIs the implementation of lean production systems on schedule? NNWhat is the uptime in each value stream? NNHow is quality in each value stream? NNDoes everyone in the facility know what they are going to run next? NNDoes purchasing know when a part has been consumed? NNDoes everyone know what product to run and when? These are just a few questions that are used to see the current state of information flow in a facility. This list of questions is certainly not all encompassing, but it can get us started thinking about information flow.

Material Flow Material flow concerns the movement of material from supplier to the facility, materials moving through the facility, and then to the end customer. Material flow is closely related to information flow and they can and are often moved with by same method. Questions that can be asked about material flow are: NNHow does someone know where to move material? NNHow does someone know when to move material? NNHow often is material moved? NNAre your inventory levels correct, based upon your material movement system? NNCan you explain your material movement system? NNDo you have good control over your purchased component inventory? NNDo you have good control over your work-in-process inventory? Once again, these questions are not all-encompassing, but they can get you started on the right track.

People Flow People flow is the third type of flow in production, and it deals with how a facility effectively moves its people. By answering the following questions, you can begin to assess the people flow in your facility. NNDo production associates know where to be? NNDo production associates know when to be there?

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NNHow many pieces can be expected with the addition of a production associate? NNCan the production associate go from value-added step to value-added step without interruption and without introducing non-value-added time? NNAre the production associates’ tasks repeatable? NNAre the production associates’ tasks consistent? The focus of this book is on information flow. However, it is important to recognize all three types of flow because of the overlap among the three types of flow.

Meet RNA Manufacturing RNA is a company that manufactures toy trucks for retail distribution. Its facility is approximately 250,000 square feet, with 300 employees. RNA has been implementing lean production for about two years and has had some significant success: NNInventory turns have gone from 11 to 55. NNRNA no longer builds to forecast but to customer pull. NNRNA now has only one schedule per value stream (but is still having problems effectively getting the schedule to the production floor in an efficient way). NNRNA has enjoyed a 30% productivity improvement. NNRNA has seen a 28% reduction in inventory. NNScrap has been reduced by 29%. NNCustomer responsiveness or service is at 98% (which means that 98% of the time, RNA can provide what a customer needs, when the customer needs it), versus 84% before lean. As you can see, RNA has been fairly successful in its lean journey, but as most successful lean implementations go, RNA sees much more opportunity to improve. The company plans to focus its new efforts on developing good information flow throughout the facility. The first step RNA made in its implementation was to draw current- and future-state value stream maps. This gave the company a plan to change. Value stream maps also act as a good tool to show both information flow and material flow and how they interact. However, a future-state value stream map shows only what the information flow and material flow should look like, not actually how it is done (see Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2). The next step RNA took in its implementation was to develop continuous flow in its production processes. This gave it stability and consistency in the production process. It also allowed it to create and improve good people flow in its facility (see Figure 1.3).

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Getting Started n 7

Figure 1.1 RNA current state map.

The third step in RNA’s implementation was to develop a timed material delivery system to support the production processes and control the inventory in the facility. RNA, like most facilities implementing lean production principles, found that when it implemented a timed delivery system (Harris et. al., 2003), that was the point of no return. In other words, after a facility implements a timed delivery system, it links its processes together into an efficient system where improvements are evident. Thus it becomes difficult to revert back to the old way of manufacturing. Implementing a timed material delivery system gave RNA a way to effectively and efficiently make material flow. This timed material delivery route will serve as an important part of making information flow. Whenever possible, RNA takes current systems and adds aspects to them for the benefit of the facility. There seemed to be a good fit between its timed delivery routes (which run every hour on the hour delivering product to production areas, picking up empty containers, and picking up pull signals) and making information flow quickly and efficiently throughout the facility. One way RNA began this information-flow initiative was to train its workforce and take steps to develop it into a lean workforce (Harris and Harris, 2007).

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8 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Figure 1.2 RNA future state map.

Although RNA saw big benefits from this training in the involvement and support for the change to lean, the company was still lacking good information flow on the production floor. As a result of its efforts to develop a lean workforce, RNA’s structure on the production floor has also changed to a team concept based on practices of Toyota. The production associates are members of a team. A team may consist of four to eight production associates, depending on the difficulty of the process. There are four to five teams in a group. The groups are divided by value stream, so there is likely more than one group per value stream. The leader of the group is the production supervisor, or is also often called the group leader (salary). There is also a leader on each team called the team leader (hourly). This person is a production associate, but with additional responsibilities. The person responsible for the entire value stream is the value stream manager. The organizational chart in Figure 1.4 shows how the production floor is organized. RNA’s structure is not the only significant change the company has undergone. Its plant layout has also changed dramatically. Figure 1.5 and Figure 1.6 outline the differences.

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Getting Started n 9

A B Min.2 Min.1 Max 4 Max 3

Cell 11

STOP

STOP

Figure 1.3 People flow.

Plant Manager

Lean Coordinator

Value Stream Manager

Group Leader

Group Leader

Team Leader

Team Leader

Team Leader

Team Leader

Team Leader

Team Leader

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Team Member

Figure 1.4 Sample organizational chart.

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10 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

**Denotes one skid of inventory.

Entrance and oﬃce area

Receiving and Shipping Dock Operations Oﬃce Area

Empty area due to ﬂoor space gained in creating continuous ﬂow activities

Empty area due to ﬂoor space gained in creating continuous ﬂow activities

Figure 1.5 RNA plant layout before lean activities.

One other very significant point that deserves mention is that the Production Control and Logistics department (PC&L) controls production in the RNA facility. The PC&L (also called Material Control, the Materials department, and Production Control in other companies) has the responsibility of scheduling the facility and procuring all the purchased parts in the facility. This is a major departure from the way many production facilities have operated in the past, but it is a necessity in a lean production organization. You may have noticed back in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 that PC&L is at the top of the value stream map. That is because in the RNA facility, PC&L is the nerve center or brain of the RNA Production System (RPS). There is no doubt that RNA has been successful, but like all good facilities that are successfully implementing lean systems, the company wants more. RNA chose information flow as the next big step in its implementation because the company now sees it as necessary for continued success. The first step that RNA took to make information flow was to introduce a base of good information flow in a production facility—the A3 problem-solving format.

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Getting Started n 11

Receiving and Shipping Dock

READY FOR NEW BUSINESS!!!!

Entrance and oﬃce area

Operations Oﬃce Area

Figure 1.6 RNA plant layout after lean implementation.

Basic Information Flow: The A3 One tool that can be used immediately by a facility to foster information flow is a tool made popular by Toyota called the A3. The A3 is a problem-solving method that forces someone to obtain good information about a problem and evaluate that information. A3 is so named simply because it is the size of paper that the problem solving method is written on (the A3 size is 11 × 17 inches). Some of the most effective facilities that use the A3 make it a rule that you cannot go to your supervisor with a production problem until you have completed an A3. This includes every position in the company, from production associate to upper management. This approach forces information to be gathered and makes the information flow upward. The reason the A3 is covered in this opening chapter is that it can be implemented in your facility right now. If your facility has developed a training program such as the one described in Developing a Lean Workforce (Harris and Harris, 2007), you can simply add a training session on how to do an A3. The A3 does not have to be part of an overriding information-flow system; instead, it can stand alone. The following pages provide an outline of the A3 problem-solving format. If it seems simple, that is because it is. The tool is simple, but using the tool to make information flow takes discipline and persistence.

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12 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

The A3 Illustrated On the next few pages, you will follow RNA from problem to solution using the A3 format. The first block to be completed is the objective block. What is expected by solving the problem? What exactly is RNA looking to accomplish? The theme, objective, targets for RNA is to increase uptime to the expected 95% level while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine. This has to be done while staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility. It is very important for everyone to keep the goal in mind, so the A3 includes a theme, objective, targets box (see Figure 1.7). RNA managers found out through their previous implementations that when people lose sight of the end goal, the solutions sometimes fix the immediate problems but are not in line with the long-term goals. RNA wanted to be sure that everyone involved with the solving of the problem realized what the goal was. As RNA has found time and time again, information flow is the most difficult of the flows for a manufacturing plant to manage effectively, and the A3 format of problem solving seeks to address that inefficiency. The objective box, then, is in place to clearly define the goals of solving the problem. In the background box, the problem itself is explained. For example, the situation that RNA is dealing with is as follows: “The automated press that marries the wheels to the wheel base accounts for an average of eight maintenance hours per week (downtime), along with the cosmetic quality problem (the pressed wheel appears to be bent).” The background box (see Figure 1.8) is also where the problem is grasped and the degree of the problem is evaluated. RNA evaluated its problem as follows: The marriage machine is supposed to run at 95% uptime. The majority of the preventive maintenance items are to be done weekly. PM compliance on this marriage machine has been 100% for the past year, yet the uptime has continued at the 65% level. Also, after further review of the big picture, this machine disrupts

Theme, objective, targets: “To increase uptime to the expected 95 percent level, while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine while also staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility.”

Figure 1.7 A3 first step.

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Getting Started n 13

Theme, objective, targets: “To increase uptime to the expected 95 percent level, while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine while also staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility.” Problem Situation and Background: “The automated press that marries the wheels to the wheel base accounts for an average of 8 maintenance hours per week (downtime), along with a cosmetic quality problem in which the pressed wheel appears to be bent.” “The marriage machine is supposed to run at 95 percent uptime. The majority of the preventive maintenance items are to be done weekly. PM compliance on this marriage machine has been 100 percent for the past year, yet the uptime has continued at the 65 percent level. This machine disrupts our product flow from the standpoint of quality problems, downtime, size, floor space, and the batch production this machine requires. It requires two fulltime operators, one loading and one unloading that appear to be a maximum of 50 percent utilized.”

Figure 1.8 A3 second step.

our product flow from the standpoint of quality problems and downtime, as well as the size, floor space, and batch production that this machine requires. It requires two fulltime operators, one loading and one unloading, who appear to be a maximum of 50% utilized. The background box is important because it allows everyone to see the severity and importance of solving the problem. In this example, there are eight hours of maintenance each week. If RNA internally charges $100 an hour for its maintenance time, these eight hours would equate to more than $800 in maintenance time per week, which is roughly $3,200 per month and $38,400 per year. This number does not include the other, more expensive, problems that are caused by downtime. Those items are the cost of premium shipments, missed shipments, hourly wages continuing to be paid during downtime, parts to fix the machine, inventory to cover downtime issues, and so on. It is very expensive for a company to experience machine downtime. RNA may want to include the actual dollar figures in this box. The next box in the A3 problem-solving format is the cause analysis box. In this box (see Figure 1.9), you discover the point of cause and the root cause of the problem. In the RNA case, “The point of cause is that the motor running the machines press had an electrical failure. The root cause of the many failures of this marriage press is the design. The machines was designed in the early ’70s and was not designed for quick changeovers. It was designed to run a large volume of a single part number before being changed over. As we have continued our lean implementations, we have found ways to quickly change over, but other problems have arisen, including the downtime issues we are experiencing. In short, the machine is very old, is very large, and was designed for batch production.”

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14 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Theme, objective, target: “To increase uptime to the expected 95 percent level, while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine while also staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility.”

Cause Analysis: “The point of cause was that the motor running the machines press had an electrical failure. The root cause of the many failures of this marriage press is the design. The machine was designed in the early seventies and not designed for quick changeovers. It was designed to run a large volume of a single part numbers before being changed over. As we have continued our lean implementations, we have found ways to quickly change over, but other problems have arisen in the form of the downtime issues we are experienceing. In short, the machine is very old, is very large, and was designed for batch production.”

Problem Situation and Background: “The automated press that marries the wheels to the wheel base accounts for an average of 8 maintenance hours per week (downtime), along with a cosmetic quality problem in which the pressed wheel appears to be bent.” “The marriage machine is supposed to run at 95 percent uptime. The majority of the preventive maintenance items are to be done weekly. PM compliance on this marriage machine has been 100 percent for the past year, yet the uptime has continued at the 65 percent level. This machine disrupts our product flow from the standpoint of quality problems, downtime, size, floor space, and the batch production this machine requires. It requires two fulltime operators, one loading and one unloading that appear to be a maximum of 50 percent utilized.”

Figure 1.9 A3 third step.

It is important for an organization to understand the cause of the problem. RNA wants to get away from simply treating the symptoms of the problem and instead fix the root cause for long-term success. It is for this reason that RNA needs both the point of cause and the root cause of the problem. In this case, the point of cause was the bad motor, but just replacing the motor does not fix the real problem. The real problem is the machine and its lack of flexibility to change over quickly and often, along with the large amount of downtime. By using this format of problem solving, RNA is able to realize that it does not need to buy another motor, but rather find a different method to marry the wheels to the wheel base. The next box (see Figure 1.10) is the countermeasure box. What is the planned action? This is the question to be answered in this box. The planned action for this problem follows: “We have found a manual press that takes only one operator, has no changeover time, requires about 20% of the floor space that the current

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Getting Started n 15

Theme, objective, target: “To increase uptime to the expected 95 percent level, while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine while also staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility.”

Cause Analysis: “The point of cause was that the motor running the machines press had an electrical failure. The root cause of the many failures of this marriage press is the design. The machine was designed in the early seventies and not designed for quick changeovers. It was designed to run a large volume of a single part numbers before being changed over. As we have continued our lean implementations, we have found ways to quickly change over, but other problems have arisen in the form of the downtime issues we are experiences. In short, the machine is very old, is very large, and was designed for batch production.”

Problem Situation and Background: “The automated press that marries the wheels to the wheel base accounts for an average of 8 maintenance hours per week (downtime), along with a cosmetic quality problem in which the pressed wheel appears to be bent.” “The marriage machine is supposed to run at 95 percent uptime. The majority of the preventive maintenance items are to be done weekly. PM compliance on this marriage machine has been 100 percent for the past year, yet the uptime has continued at the 65 percent level. This machine disrupts our product flow from the standpoint of quality problems, downtime, size, floor space, and the batch production this machine requires. It requires two fulltime operators, one loading and one unloading that appear to be a maximum of 50 percent utilized.”

Countermeasure: “We have found a manual press that takes only one operator, has no changeover time, takes up about 20 percent of the floor space that the current marriage press machine takes, and appears to have very little downtime. This is a manual press that will be very efficient and solve the root cause of the problem. This manual press costs $1,500, so the cost will be absorbed by less than a month of maintenance costs.”

Figure 1.10 A3 fourth step.

marriage press machine requires, and appears to have very little downtime. This is a manual press that will be very efficient and solve the root cause of the problem. This manual press costs $1,500, so the cost will be absorbed by less than a month of the current maintenance costs.” The countermeasure box is critical to the success of using A3s, because it creates an environment in which, when someone comes to management with a problem, he or she has thought through the problem, including a potential solution. Whether this solution is ultimately used is not necessarily the point; the point is that the person completing the A3 is thinking in a problem-solving way. Instead of just pointing out a problem, the associate has to say, “Here is the problem, and here is my plan to solve the problem.” The next box is the schedule box (see Figure 1.11). You know the problem, the background of the problem, the severity, the point of cause, root cause, and the solution, so the next logical step is the implementation plan. Now that you have all of this information, you need to plan its implementation. “Our schedule is for Mr.

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16 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Theme, objective, target: “To increase uptime to the expected 95 percent level, while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine while also staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility.”

Cause Analysis: “The point of cause was that the motor running the machines press had an electrical failure. The root cause of the many failures of this marriage press is the design. The machine was designed in the early seventies and not designed for quick changeovers. It was designed to run a large volume of a single part numbers before being changed over. As we have continued our lean implementations, we have found ways to quickly change over, but other problems have arisen in the form of the downtime issues we are experiencing. In short, the machine is very old, is very large, and was designed for batch production.”

Problem Situation and Background: “The automated press that marries the wheels to the wheel base accounts for an average of 8 maintenance hours per week (downtime), along with a cosmetic quality problem in which the pressed wheel appears to be bent.” “The marriage machine is supposed to run at 95 percent uptime. The majority of the preventive maintenance items are to be done weekly. PM compliance on this marriage machine has been 100 percent for the past year, yet the uptime has continued at the 65 percent level. This machine disrupts our product flow from the standpoint of quality problems, downtime, size, floor space, and the batch production this machine requires. It requires two fulltime operators, one loading and one unloading that appear to be a maximum of 50 percent utilized.”

Countermeasure: “We have found a manual press that takes only one operator, has no changeover time, takes up about 20 percent of the floor space that the current marriage press machine takes, and appears to have very little downtime. This is a manual press that will be very efficient and solve the root cause of the problem. This manual press costs $1,500, so the cost will be absorbed by less than a month of maintenance costs.”

Implementation Schedule: “Our schedule is for Mr. McConnaughhay to purchase the machine on April 14th. We receive delivery of the machine on Friday, April 23. We plan to insert the machine into the manufacturing cell on the Saturday, April 24. We have discussed this with Production, and Ms. Ruby will be inside the manufacturing cell along with our maintenance representative Ms. Audrey to train the operator and ensure a solid start up.”

Figure 1.11 A3 Fifth step.

McConnaughhay to purchase the machine on April 14th. We will receive delivery of the machine on Friday, April 23. We plan to insert the machine into the manufacturing cell on Saturday, April 24. We have discussed this with Production, and Ms. Ruby will be inside the manufacturing cell along with our maintenance representative, Ms. Audrey, to train the Production operator and ensure a solid startup.” The schedule box is important because RNA has found that with a lack of an implementation plan, the best plans sometimes never come to pass. The company has learned this truth throughout its lean journey and wants to be sure that the implementation plan is always part of the problem-solving process. RNA is very pleased with its place in this format of problem solving, because now when a project is approved, the company has a schedule to follow to be sure that the implementation is going smoothly.

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Getting Started n 17

The final box on the A3 problem-solving format is the future actions box (see Figure 1.12). What actions are you going to take in the future to see whether this solution was a good one? Can it be further improved? Is there anything additional that needs to be done? In RNA’s example, the future actions are as follows: “Ms. Audrey will spend every morning’s startup for the first two weeks after implementation of the manual press. She will evaluate it on a daily basis. She will also check the press at 1:30 every day for the first two weeks, along with two unscheduled periodical checks. There is a 2:30 pm standup meeting at the press scheduled every afternoon the first week of implementation. The second week, there is a standing meeting at the press on Monday and Thursday at 2:30 pm. On the second Friday after implementation, we will provide a report on the progress, problems, successes, and countermeasures taken.”

Theme, objective, target: “To increase uptime to the expected 95 percent level, while better utilizing manpower efficiency, better utilizing floor space, and incorporating lean techniques at the marriage press machine while also staying in line with the five-year flow plan of the facility.”

Cause Analysis: “The point of cause was that the motor running the machines press had an electrical failure. The root cause of the many failures of this marriage press is the design. The machine was designed in the early seventies and not designed for quick changeovers. It was designed to run a large volume of a single part numbers before being changed over. As we have continued our lean implementations, we have found ways to quickly change over, but other problems have arisen in the form of the downtime issues we are experiencing. In short, the machine is very old, is very large, and was designed for batch production.”

Implementation Schedule: “Our schedule is for Mr. McConnaughhay to purchase the machine on April 14th. We receive delivery of the machine on Friday, April 23. We plan to insert the machine into the manufacturing cell on the Saturday, April 24. We have discussed this with Production, and Ms. Ruby will be inside the manufacturing cell along with our maintenance representative Ms. Audrey to train the operator and ensure a solid start up.”

Problem Situation and Background: “The automated press that marries the wheels to the wheel base accounts for an average of 8 maintenance hours per week (downtime), along with a cosmetic quality problem in which the pressed wheel appears to be bent.” “The marriage machine is supposed to run at 95 percent uptime. The majority of the preventive maintenance items are to be done weekly. PM compliance on this marriage machine has been 100 percent for the past year, yet the uptime has continued at the 65 percent level. This machine disrupts our product flow from the standpoint of quality problems, downtime, size, floor space, and the batch production this machine requires. It requires two fulltime operators, one loading and one unloading that appear to be a maximum of 50 percent utilized.”

Countermeasure: “We have found a manual press that takes only one operator, has no changeover time, takes up about 20 percent of the floor space that the current marriage press machine takes, and appears to have very little downtime. This is a manual press that will be very efficient and solve the root cause of the problem. This manual press costs $1,500, so the cost will be absorbed by less than a month of maintenance costs.”

Future Actions: “Ms. Audrey will spend every morning’s startup for the first 2 weeks after implementation of the manual press. She will evaluate it on a daily basis. She will also check the press at 1:30 every day for the first 2 weeks, along with two unscheduled periodical checks. There is a standup meeting at the press scheduled every afternoon the first week of implementation at 2:30 in the afternoon. The second week, there is a standing meeting at the press on Monday and Thursday at 2:30 pm. On the second Friday after implementation, we will provide a report on the progress, problems, successes, and countermeasures taken.”

Figure 1.12 Completed A3.

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18 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

RNA has found this box to be very beneficial. It shows that a change will not be made without a follow-up plan. This is also another lesson that RNA has learned throughout its lean implementation. A project implemented without sufficient follow-up will likely develop many problems. It is very important when implementing any initiative that there is a plan in place for follow-up. If a project is worth doing, it is worth making sure that it is working and that the issues are being addressed in a quick and efficient manner. Too many times, RNA managers have seen good projects implemented, only to have them fail due to a lack of follow-up.

Benefits of the A3 RNA has been able to address many of its concerns by using the A3 problemsolving format. The A3s have provided everyone involved with the same information, talking points, and format to view. They have become standard practice at the RNA facility. Meetings now focus more on solutions and implementation plans than on background information. And RNA is now creating problem solvers throughout the facility. RNA has made it a point to quickly spread this format throughout the entire facility and throughout all of its departments. The company is now able to see the end goals of a project so that the implementation method and solution are in line with that goal. RNA has its people now thinking in the problem-solving mindset, which promises to be very beneficial, now as well as into the future. They also have schedules, both for implementation

Theme, objective, target:

Cause Analysis:

Implementation Schedule:

Problem Situation and Background:

Countermeasure:

Future Actions:

Figure 1.13 A3 Template.

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Getting Started n 19

and for follow-up, that can be tracked. With A3, RNA has implemented a tool for problem solving that is now part of its production system.

Now You Can Begin The A3 was a tool that RNA implemented right away because it was so doable and got employees thinking about information flow. It was also a tool that RNA could implement at all levels of its facility. Now you can take the blank A3 in Figure 1.13 and address a problem in your facility. Then you can begin to train others in your facility to use this simple methodology to address problems in the facility.

Key Points NNThere are three types of production flow, and they overlap a great deal. NNAn A3 should be one page, should be in a standard format, and should be short and to the point. NNBe sure the A3 focuses on the root cause of the problem. NNAn A3 must clearly define its objectives. NNAn A3 should contain schedules for implementation and follow up.

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Chapter 2

The Level Production Schedule After the basics of the A3, RNA decided that the best place to begin implementing a comprehensive system of the right information flow would be at the customer. The majority of its lean implementation began at the customer, because the customer defines value. The first step RNA took to implement a system of information flow was to develop a way to effectively handle the various orders that it received from its customers and determine the best way to get those orders (in the form of production schedules) to the people who needed them. 1. Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of a level production schedule. 2. What Is the Information? xercise: How does your facility know what product to make and when? Is it by MRP? E Is it whatever parts you have to run?

21

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22 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

The information needed comes from the end customer and takes the form of an order, one likely generated and provided by the sales department. That order is then taken by the Production Control department, where it is transferred in some way to a schedule for the facility. Most facilities know that this needs to happen, but can have difficulties putting the idea into effect. The key information in this chapter is the customer order: how it is collected, changed into a schedule, and then provided to those who need it. 3. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: Who requires the schedule? (Hint: do not be too broad in your answer.) Why do they need the schedule?

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The Level Production Schedule n 23

Figure 2.1 RNA current state map.

A common misconception is that poor information flow is always the result of a lack of the right information. This is probably true 80% of the time, but when looking at the schedule as information flow, the opposite is often true. Take, for example, the current state value stream map in Figure 2.1. There is too much information given to the production floor. This is counterproductive because the overabundance of information gives the production supervisor a choice as to what he or she is going to run. On the map in Figure 2.1, the schedule is given to all the production areas in the facility. To illustrate the point, consider the schedule and situation in Table 2.1. Table 2.1 Weekly “Firm” Schedule Product Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

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A

B

C

D

E

100 100 100 100 100

100 100 100 100 100

100 100 100 100 100

100 100 100 100 100

100 100 100 100 100

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24 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

The Grind area supervisor takes the schedule and sees that he or she is supposed to make only 100 A’s on Monday. The area happens to be running very well that day, and the supervisor does not want to change over because it will cause inefficiency in the process. Even though the plan is to shutdown and change over, the supervisor chooses not to because the system is running well and he or she can see that 500 A’s are needed for the week. The supervisor decides to just run a week’s worth of Product A on Monday, and thus consumes valuable material and labor that could have been used to produce the right product. The problem comes when the downstream process (Paint) is following the schedule. It runs the scheduled 100 A’s, and then changes over to run 100 B’s (as the schedule states), only to find out that the previous process (Grind) is not making B’s. Now there is a real problem in the system. The downstream process has to change back to A’s to run. At this point, the schedule is more of a “guideline” than a schedule, which means that Production Control has lost control. In cases like this, Production Control will be treated more as “production expediters” as it tries to keep the plant in parts, even though it does not know what is going to be run next. This situation is a significant reason that the large inventory levels stack up in the facility. The second reason this is too much information is that it forces a facility schedule for a week at time—or it causes many revised schedules throughout the week. Some companies in the past would send out a so-called “firm” schedule for the week. However, on Monday afternoon, they would have to send out a revised “firm” schedule, also known as a hot sheet. This happened periodically throughout the week and caused many unplanned changeovers and part shortages throughout the facility. So who is the customer of the production schedule? Is it the direct supplier to that schedule or the pacemaker process? The pacemaker process is the last point in the value stream where there can be a schedule and where the product can flow from that point forward. For example, the pacemaker process in the preceding value stream was Final Assembly. Production Control must send Final Assembly a schedule because Final Assembly is the direct supplier of that schedule. Looking upstream from Final Assembly to the Paint area, Paint is the direct supplier to Final Assembly. Paint does not need a schedule from Production Control. Instead, Paint needs a pull signal from Final Assembly, as Final Assembly is the direct customer of paint. (This concept of moving work-in-process information is covered in detail in Chapter 3). Paint does not need to know the schedule for Final Assembly, only what Final Assembly pulls from Paint’s market. The futurestate value stream map in Figure 2.2 illustrates this concept, showing that the customer of the schedule is only the direct supplier of that schedule.

Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who sets the schedule in your facility? Who schedules the production floor? How often is there a revision in the schedule?

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The Level Production Schedule n 25

At this point, if you have been implementing lean manufacturing systems for some time, the answer to the preceding question may seem obvious. The organization that is responsible for the information is Production Control. There are two major reasons that Production Control has to control the schedule. First, Production Control should be able to see the big picture. We have found through the years that Production does its best to schedule, but that approach never works, because Production cannot see the big picture. It is much too tempting to do what is best for the individual manufacturing areas rather than for the value stream as a whole. As companies implement lean manufacturing systems, they begin to ask, “Why are my production supervisors scheduling the production floor?” The answer is often “because that is the way it has always been done.” However, in a lean system, it should be recognized that the production supervisor’s time would be much better spent supervising and improving the process rather than scheduling and chasing parts. This leads to the second major reason that Production Control should be in charge of this information. We often ask classes that we teach, “Have you ever been scheduled to make a part that you did not have the material to make?” In almost every instance, a giggle comes from the audience because it is such a common practice in mass-manufacturing facilities to schedule without sufficient thought as to whether the material needed to make the product is actually on the production floor.

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26 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Figure 2.2 RNA future state map.

This approach (obviously) disrupts the flow because it can cause unplanned changeovers, lead to making less product than was needed, or end with making a product that was not scheduled at that point in time. Therefore, the second reason that it is important for Production Control to manage this information is because, in a lean environment, it should also manage the material and parts. Production Control should never schedule a product to run that it does not have the proper material to complete. It is the responsibility of the Production Control organization to level, balance, and schedule the plant as well as to be sure that each department has the components to complete the order.

Getting Started with the Schedule Throughout its implementation of the RNA Production System, RNA came to understand the importance of having Production Control manage both the schedule and materials. Company management also understood that there should only be one schedule point per value stream, and that pull signals in the form of a kanban card was its chosen method of getting information through the rest of the process. (A kanban card is a signal for some type of action.) However, RNA was having problems physically developing and releasing the schedule to the

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The Level Production Schedule n 27

production floor. The rest of this chapter takes us through the process RNA went through to make the information flow from the customer through Production Control to the production floor.

Getting the Order from the Customer RNA received customer orders in various ways. Some arrived by fax, some came by e-mail, and still others were received by phone. In a perfect world, all of the orders would have come in the same way, but it is not a perfect world. RNA had no leverage to ask customers to change the method by which they ordered—it was happy to get the orders any way it could. Given that the way in which orders were received was unchangeable, RNA decided to focus on the process of determining how these orders are changed into schedules and released to the production floor. The value stream on which RNA focused its implementation of informationflow systems has 10 finished goods part numbers. RNA chose a relatively simple value stream to begin with, because managers knew that if they could make information flow within this value stream, they could use the same principles on their other value streams. The 10 finished goods part numbers were identified, as was the past 12-month history (see Figure 2.3). The monthly history gave RNA a better idea of what customer demand really was.

Are Forecasts Always Correct? RNA, like many other companies implementing lean production, tried to develop its manufacturing operations to be very flexible so it can respond to a changing customers.

A9574

B8363

C8226

D9483

E5847

F9488

G2940

H1122

I3344

J9189

January

1200

800

600

400

200

200

0

200

0

0

February

1200

800

600

400

200

200

0

200

0

0

0

0

0

March

1200

800

600

400

200

200

0

April

1200

800

600

400

200

200

200

0

0

200

May

1200

800

600

400

200

200

200

0

0

0

June

1200

800

600

400

200

200

0

0

200

0

July

1200

800

600

400

200

200

0

0

0

0

1200

August

600

200

200

0

200

0

0

1200

800 800

400

September

600

400

200

200

0

200

0

200

October

1200

800

600

400

200

200

0

0

0

0

November

1200

800

600

200

200

0

0

200

0

December

1200

800

600

400 400

200

200

200

200

0

0

Figure 2.3 RNA 12-month history.

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28 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

The only certainty about forecasts is that they are never right and they always change, so RNA decided that a better way to understand customer demand was to look at past history. With the past history, RNA could calculate a takt time for the value stream. Takt time represents the customer demand rate, or the rate the customer is buying product, and is calculated by taking the total operating time per shift and dividing it by customer demand. RNA looked at this history and decided that 180 was an average daily customer demand for the month of January. After managers knew the demand, they could calculate the takt time.

27,000 available seconds per shift (8 hours - two 15-minute breaks)

÷ 180 (demand) = 150 second takt time Takt time is one of the most important concepts in a lean manufacturing facility because it represents the rate at which a company should produce. The facility is producing the product exactly at the rate the customer is buying it. This is a key concept because, by producing to takt time, a facility can be sure it is not overproducing. The waste of overproduction is the most significant form of waste because it provides the environment for all other forms of waste to occur.

Takt Time Is Not Enough: Leveling the Production Schedule Calculating takt time gives a company a valuable piece of information and is important to making information flow, but there are other steps that must be taken. Now that the facility knows how often to produce products, the Production Control department has to determine at what mix and frequency to release the schedule. Leveling the production schedule is one of the best ways to eliminate waste in a manufacturing system because doing so keeps production from overproducing or producing in batches. Producing in a level manner also leads to lower inventory levels and faster lead times. RNA managers knew that operating with a level schedule would help them reach their goals, but first, managers had to answer three questions about level schedules: 1. What is a level schedule? 2. What is the mechanism for storing the level schedule? 3. Who is responsible for getting the level schedule to the production floor?

What Is a Level Schedule? A level schedule is when both the quantity and mix of parts to be produced over a set period of time are equally sequenced in a manner that is most efficient for

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The Level Production Schedule n 29

the value stream to produce, while still producing only what has been consumed out of the finished goods market or what has been ordered by the customer. A level schedule is an important piece of the lean manufacturing puzzle because it takes pressure off the upstream processes that are used to reacting to what the downstream processes produce. In a facility where there is a level schedule in each value stream, product is pulled from upstream processes in a level manner; this is easier to react to than the old batch method that made it very hard for upstream processes to plan and react. An example of a level schedule is as follows. The customer orders 2,500 pieces per week, on average. But, the customer does not take the order in an even manner. The customer takes the order as it is needed, such as the following: Monday: 800 Tuesday: 0 Wednesday: 200 Thursday: 900 Friday: 600 If the Production area produced the same way in which the customer orders, the facility would be inefficient. To run to a level schedule and be more efficient, the facility would have to hold a buffer stock of 500 pieces and produce 500 pieces a day, operating as outlined in Table 2.2: The level schedule is also important to the implementation of lean manufacturing principles because it is a good way to signal waste in the system. If a facility puts a level schedule in place, supervisors will quickly see waste or inefficiencies that keep them from producing to that schedule. After a facility can see the waste and inefficiencies, it can take steps to remove that waste. One final point is that a level schedule is a key to effectively reducing the production lead time in a facility. A level schedule forces facilities to produce quickly and in small batches, thus decreasing lead time, which in turn translates into less inventory in the system. Thus, a level schedule enables facilities to tie up less cash in production costs. RNA broke its finished products into three categories. The first was the highest runners, which were run very often and were called runners. This group was made up of A9574, B8363, C8226, and D9483. The second group included parts that ran often but with lower volumes; this group was called repeaters. This group Table 2.2 How a Level Schedule may Work Monday Tuesday Beginning Inventory Daily Production Customer Pull Remaining Inventory

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500 500 800 200

200 500 0 700

Wednesday 700 500 200 1000

Thursday 1000 500 900 600

Friday 600 500 600 500

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30 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

included E5847 and F9488. The third group was called strangers, and included parts that RNA was contractually obligated to run, but in very low volumes and not often. This group was composed of parts G2940, H1122, I3344, and J9189. RNA took these groups and had to make a decision about how often it wanted to run each part. By breaking the parts into the three groups (runners, repeaters, and strangers), RNA could make decisions concerning the groups. For example, RNA decided that it wanted to run the runners twice per shift, the repeaters once per shift, and the strangers once per week. RNA managers thought that this would work best for them because they were running their high-volume parts very often and their medium-volume parts every day. The parts that were not run very often were run every week, which was a big improvement over the past, when these parts were run very infrequently in large lots. (It is important to note that RNA had minima changeover time in final assembly. Its upstream processes were not so lucky, so the next chapter deals with how to deal with changeover times in the schedule.) At this point, RNA was charged with taking the hours in the day and putting the level schedule in place, but first managers had to consider pitch. The pitch is the finished goodspack quantity multiplied by the time it takes to produce each product. RNA’s pitch in this manufacturing area was 25 minutes.

10 pieces in finished good pack × 150 seconds per piece = 1,500 seconds

= 25 minutes for a finished goods pack Now that they knew the pitch, RNA managers understood how they should provide the schedule to the production floor. They decided that because the finished goods pack-out quantity was 10, they should schedule the production floor in increments of 10. By understanding the pitch, they understood that the floor could make only two finished pack-out quantities and four pieces of the next pack-out in 1 hour. With this information (see Figure 2.4), RNA began to develop a level and balanced schedule for this area. RNA first had to look at the daily requirements. In the runners group, Product A9574 was 60, B8363 was 40, C8226 was 30, and D9483 was 20. The repeaters requirement was 10. RNA managers decided to focus on these two groups first, because they represented the most significant volume. Now, they looked at the times of the day and planned accordingly. (From this point forward, the product numbers will be represented only by their first letter, as in Figure 2.4.) Figure 2.4 shows how RNA decided to level the schedule for this area. This plan accomplishes the managers’ goals of running runners (A,B,C,D) twice a day and repeaters once per day. Notice in the time slot between 11:30 and 12:30 that there is a plan to run Product H, which is a stranger. RNA managers made a placeholder for a part from this group. This schedule looks to be good through the month of January, but if there were a need to run another stranger, RNA would place that part into the slot that H currently holds.

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The Level Production Schedule n 31

Time

Schedule for Hour

7:00–8:00

10A

10A

4A

8:00–9:00

6A

10B

8B

9:15–10:00

2B

10C

6D

10:00–11:00

4D

10E

10F

11:30–12:30

10H

10A

4A

12:30–1:30

6A

10A

8B

1:45–2:30

2B

10B

6C

2:30–3:30

4C

10C

10D

Figure 2.4 Sample level schedule for RNA.

Note: We concede that this is not an in-depth look into the philosophy of level scheduling. The purpose of this book is not to show you how to develop a level schedule, but how to make that schedule flow effectively to and through the production floor. There are many other books about how to create a level schedule, so we let those authors deal with that information. Our focus is on how to get the schedule from Production Control to the production floor at the right time and in the right manner to effectively make information flow in the facility.

What Is the Mechanism for Storing the Level Schedule? RNA managers wanted to get rid of all the paper schedules in the plant because they provided too much information to too many people. Instead, Production groups needed to know only what they were running at the moment and what they would run next. By giving only this much information to the production floor, RNA had a reasonable expectation that Production would run only Daily Demand by Month

A9574

B8363

C8226

D9483

E5847

F9488

G2940

H1122

I3344

J9189

Total

January

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

10

0

0

180

February

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

10

0

0

180

March

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

0

0

0

170

April

60

40

30

20

10

10

10

0

0

10

190

May

60

40

30

20

10

10

10

0

0

0

180

June

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

0

10

0

180

July

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

0

0

0

170

August

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

10

0

0

180

September

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

10

0

10

190

October

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

0

0

0

170

November

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

0

10

0

180

December

60

40

30

20

10

10

10

10

0

0

190

Figure 2.5 Average daily demand by month.

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32 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

what it was scheduled to run. RNA management also knew that it had to order in finished-good pack-out quantities—it did not make any sense to order in a quantity that was not a finished-goods pack. RNA’s finished-goods pack-out was 10 pieces. Understanding all of this, RNA management had to determine how to package and store the information in a production schedule. RNA managers chose the use of a production kanban card to hold the information. In this case, the kanban card is a signal to produce 10 pieces of a part number (see Figure 2.6). Although RNA managers had decided to use a kanban, continued to call it a “schedule,” so as not to get it confused with the kanban cards on the production floor. In addition, the kanban cards for strangers were a bright pink to signal that these strangers were on their way. They needed to be a different color because they were not run every day. RNA management wanted everyone to know that a rare part was coming through the system so that they could plan for the product. Now that RNA management had a way to hold the information, they had to determine how to store the schedule, and they settled on the purchased parts market. The reason for this choice was that the Production Control department at RNA is responsible for both the schedule and the parts to make the schedule. All the purchased parts in the RNA facility are located in the purchased part market. Managers did not want to store the schedule on the production floor, because the floor would again have too much information, as it did in the days of the paper schedule. (Another important reason for keeping the schedule in the purchased parts market will be discussed in the following section.) Having decided where to store the information, RNA had to determine what it would look like. This is a very important point that often is overlooked. Many facilities know they need a level schedule, can develop a level schedule, but have difficulty in effectively making the schedule (information) flow. Managers decided that the best method was to have a board set up just like the level schedule. This would be a white board with the times at which the production kanban cards should be run on the left, and places for completed kanban card on the right (see Figure 2.7). This board shows what the manufacturing should be producing by the hour. It is also a tool that can be effectively used in management. In the column on the right, the kanban cards that are made are returned to the board. A quick look at Schedule Card Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

Quantity:

10

Figure 2.6 Kanban card taking place of schedule.

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The Level Production Schedule n 33

Make Today

Completed Today

8:00–9:00

7:00–8:00

9:15–10:00

8:00–9:00

10:00–11:00

9:15–10:00

11:30–12:30

10:00–11:00

12:30–1:30

11:30–12:30

1:30–2:30

12:30–1:30

2:30–3:30

1:30–2:30

7:00–8:00 (tomorrow)

2:30–3:30

Figure 2.7 Sample schedule board in purchased parts market.

the board at any time of day lets management know how production is running. For example, the board in Figure 2.8 indicates that there is a problem in production. It is 10:30 a.m., but the production kanban for 10:30 a.m. is still on the board: Production is behind. Note: Notice that the board in Figure 2.8 begins with the second hour of the day. This is because what is running the first hour would be provided to the manufacturing area the last hour of the day before. This way, when everyone comes in for the day’s startup, no one is waiting for the schedule, and the startup can begin on time. Now that Production Control has the schedule and has it stored in the right place, managers are faced with physically getting the schedule to the floor.

Who Is Responsible for Getting the Level Schedule to the Production Floor? RNA management realized that if it could not physically get the schedule (information) to the production floor in an efficient and productive manner, all that work to develop a level schedule would not yield its intended benefits. Just having a level schedule was not enough; RNA had to make the schedule flow to its intended recipients.

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34 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Make Today

Completed Today

8:00–9:00

7:00–8:00

9:15–10:00

8:00–9:00

10:00–11:00

9:15–10:00

11:30–12:30 12:30–1:30 1:30–2:30 2:30–3:30 7:00–8:00 (tomorrow)

10:00–11:00 11:30–12:30 12:30–1:30 1:30–2:30

2:30–3:30

Figure 2.8 Schedule board being used in purchased parts market.

One of the major reasons RNA managers believed they could effectively implement a level schedule is that they have a strong Production Control department. This was not always the case; in fact, before the switch to lean production, RNA considered doing away with the department altogether. RNA now realizes that the Production Control department is the nerve center of production and a necessity to lean production. RNA was able to grow its Production Control department into a solid group through implementation of a timed material delivery route. A timed material delivery route is a route that leaves its purchased parts market every hour with product for the production floor. It is set up to replenish the material that has been consumed by the production floor. RNA uses a tugger,* driven by a production control associate, to deliver product to multiple production areas in the facility. This associate goes to the production floor, delivers product, picks up empty containers, and picks up pull signals (replenishment kanban cards). The associate then goes to the purchased parts market, gets the material that corresponds with the pull signals, and returns to the production area the next hour with product. The cycle then starts again: The associate delivers the product, picks up empty containers, and picks up * A tugger is a motorized vehicle that can pull multiple carts filled with material for the production floor.

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The Level Production Schedule n 35

pull signals. A detailed description of the method of the development of a timed material delivery route is provided in Making Materials Flow (Harris et al., 2003). RNA found its timed material delivery route to be an effective way to move material and information. The information was in the form of the kanban card. RNA began to consider the possibility of the route runner to take the schedule to the production floor. This made sense, because the route runner was on a 1-hour route (he left the purchased parts market every hour). RNA’s plan was to release the schedule to the production floor every hour. It was settled: The route runner in the RNA facility would take the hourly schedule from the scheduling board and bring it to the production area every hour as part of his or her route. He or she would also be charged with bringing the schedules back to the board after they were made every hour. Returning the completed schedule from the production floor is important because it gives the driver permission to take another schedule to the production floor. The route runner, in essence, is replenishing the schedule on the production floor. So if the production floor completed two production kanban cards, the route runner will return the next hour with two more production kanban cards. RNA’s material delivery system is based on replenishment, meaning if production uses a product, it will get more of that product. If it does not use the product, it will not get more until it uses the product. RNA used the same methodology with the production kanban card. Schedules were taken to the floor only after previous schedules had been completed. Making the information flow in this way provided a valuable check to the Production Control department. That check was that all the parts that were needed to make the schedule were at the manufacturing area. The Production Control department at RNA was in charge of both the schedule and the parts to make the schedule. Therefore, if the route runner realized that the parts were not there to make the intended schedule, he or she could take action. That action may include changing the schedule, expediting parts, or something else, but the bottom line was that the route runner could make sure that Production was never scheduled to make an order without the parts to make that order.

Storing the Schedule on the Production Floor RNA also needed a mechanism on the production floor to store the schedule so that Production could see what it was going to run next. Managers developed a schedule board at the point of production. This board (see Figure 2.9) held information on what had been made the previous hour, what was currently being run, and what was going to be run the next hour. At this point, RNA was successful at making information flow from the end customer to the production floor. RNA received information from the customer, calculated the demand, calculated takt time, calculated pitch, decided on how often to run every part, developed a level schedule, developed a place to store the level schedule, and then used a current, effective, lean system to get the

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36 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively Schedule for Cell 11 Complete

Running Next Part Number to be Produced:

Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

A9574

Quantity:

Quantity:

10

10

Running Now Part Number to be Produced:

A9574 Quantity:

10

Figure 2.9 Schedule board at production area.

schedule to Production and return the completed schedules to the Production Control department. This information is now flowing—Figure 2.10 illustrates the process. The next step is to link this information with upstream processes in the facility.

Key Points NNToo much information may be as detrimental having too little information. NNProduction Control schedules Production. NNThe schedule revolves around takt time. NNHaving a level schedule is not enough; you have to effectively move that information to the production floor. NNRelease the schedule to Production every hour, or on a cadence that is best for the organization. NNDevelop a timed system so that the schedule is taken to Production on a regular basis.

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The Level Production Schedule n 37

Customer

Customer

Customer

Phone

Fax

mail

Customer email

Production Control

Make Today

Completed Today

8:00–9:00

7:00–8:00

9:15–10:00

8:00–9:00

10:00–11:00

(Production Schedule in Purchased Parts Market)

9:15–10:00

11:30–12:30

10:00–11:00

12:30–1:30

11:30–12:30

1:30–2:30

12:30–1:30

2:30–3:30

1:30–2:30

7:00–8:00 (tomorrow)

2:30–3:30

(Tugger driver taking schedule and material to the production floor and completed production schedules back to the board in the purchased parts market.)

Schedule for Cell 11 Running Next

Complete

Part Number to be Produced:

Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

A9574

Quantity:

Quantity:

10

Running Now Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

10

(Production Schedule in Production Area)

Quantity:

10

Figure 2.10 Flow of level schedule.

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Chapter 3

Making Information Flow Upstream After a facility creates a level schedule and gets it to the production floor, it has to develop a method of getting the rest of the facility to plan—and react based on that schedule. There should be only one schedule from Production Control for each value stream, as discussed in Chapter 2 and illustrated in the future state value stream map in Chapter 1. That schedule is placed at the pacemaker process, which then begins pulling material from the upstream processes. Too often, manufacturers are running the wrong products at the wrong time. We have worked with facilities that have been able to make significant improvement just by making what they need, when they need it—that is, the right product at the right time. This is different from what many manufacturing firms have done in the past, which is running what they think they need, when they think they need it. This concept is not new to lean manufacturing. Virtually every value stream map shows some form of either information flow or material flow. Good value stream maps show both. However, we have found that taking the principles that are shown on the value stream map, such as physically developing and effectively moving information, are more difficult to put into operation than just drawing on a map. This chapter explains a way to make the necessary information flow to upstream process so that those processes know what product to produce and when to produce it.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of the development and execution of internal work in process markets and production boards in upstream process.

39

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40 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

1. What Is the Information? Exercise: How do upstream processes in your facility know what to make? How do they know how many to make? How do they know when to change over?

Good information for a production area is twofold: what needs to be run and when. The difficulty with most manufacturing schedules is that they are too big. Experience has shown that manufacturing firms cannot see into the future that well. What needs to be developed is a pull system that provides production information to every process in the value stream that is pertinent only to them— Process D does not need to know what Process A is running. Process D needs to know only what product Process C is pulling from them. The information needs to be developed, remembering that providing too much information can be as detrimental as providing too little information (see Figure 3.1). 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: In your facility, who or what needs to know what to run and when? Do you believe that they receive that information in the right amounts, too much, or too little?

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 41

The answer to the first part of this question seems to be very simple, but that is not necessarily the case. The answer cannot, for example, be “Production.” That answer is too broad. Who really needs the information? The answer is “each individual manufacturing area in the value stream.” That information needs to be tailored for each individual area. For example, Process C needs to know what

Process D

Process C

Process B

Process A

Figure 3.1 Diagram illustrating pull.

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42 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Customer of Grind

Supplier to Paint

Stamping C/T

35 sec

Downtime

2%

C/O

120 sec

Grind C/T

Final Assy.

Paint 11.4 sec

C/T

100 sec

Downtime 1%

Downtime 25%

C/O

C/O

10 sec

10 min

C/T

150 sec

Downtime

0%

C/O

0 sec

Figure 3.2 Paint is Customer of Grind.

Process C needs to run and not anyone else. This information may be tailored by runtime, changeover time, and lot size. The key is that the information system is set up with the customer in mind. The customer is the next individual production area in the value stream, not just Production as a whole. (See Figure 3.2.) 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: In your facility, who holds the information that the production areas need? Does everyone in the facility know?

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 43

This information may not be held by anyone yet. This information may have to be calculated. The responsibility for developing this information lies with the Production Control department, but it must have a great deal of input from the Production department. This information must be set up with an understanding of how Production produces products. For example: If it is easier for Product C to change over to Product A than it is to change to Product B, the area should be scheduled to change from Product C to Product A to Product B. An effective way to accomplish this is to have a work-in-process market. This point will be illustrated as we follow RNA through its implementation of the internal informationflow system.

RNA Begins Its Implementation of Internal Information Flow After RNA had its level schedule flowing to and from the pacemaker process, it had to make information flow back through the upstream processes. To do this, RNA had to begin with the physical link between the processes. Take, for example, the value stream in Figure 3.3. The pacemaker in this value stream is Final Assembly. A good future state value stream map shows the informational link, but RNA had to determine how Paint was going to physically get the information it needed to produce its products. Paint needed to know what to make and when to make it. RNA managers thought about the route runner taking schedules to the floor on his or her normal material delivery route and began to consider other ways the route runner could help improve information flow. The management assigned the task of picking up the work-in-process material from the Paint market and taking it to the Final Assembly cell. This was a practical move, because the route runner already knew what product was needed next—via the schedule. All the route runner had to do was look at the schedule cards to be delivered to final assembly, pick the corresponding material up from Paint, and deliver them along with the schedule to final assembly. In essence, the route runner was saying to final assembly, “Here is the schedule and here are the parts to make the schedule.” Of course, there were other parts in Final Assembly, but they were common across all the product lines.

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44 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Figure 3.3 RNA future state map.

These parts included washers, nuts, bolts, end caps, and so on. These parts were still delivered on a replenishment basis, based on kanban cards, as before. Final Assembly received 10 different-color kits that contain a frame, a body, and two doors. The remaining items in the final assembly cell were purchased components that included the engine, wheels, wheel shaft, washers, nut, bolt, grommet, and endcap. Because the parts were set up this way, the purchased components were replenished every hour as they were consumed, along the route runner’s normal route. The 10 different colored doors, frames, and bodies make the part number. For example, Product A is a red truck, Product B is a blue truck, and Product C is a white truck. When the route runner looks at the schedule and it says that final assembly is supposed to make 20 As, it is simple for him to stop at Paint’s market and get the parts to make the order, which would be 20 kits for Product A: 40 red doors (two doors per truck), 20 red frames, and 20 red bodies. After the driver does this, he then goes to final assembly, places the schedule on the schedule board, delivers the parts from Paint, and replenishes the purchased components using the kanban cards that he picked up the previous

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 45

Purchased Parts Market Make Today

Completed Today

8:00–9:00

7:00–8:00

9:15–10:00

8:00–9:00

10:00–11:00

9:15–10:00

11:30–12:30

10:00–11:00

12:30–1:30

11:30–12:30

1:30–2:30

12:30–1:30

2:30–3:30

1:30–2:30

7:00–8:00 (tomorrow)

2:30–3:30

1

Schedule for Cell 11

4

Running Next

Complete

Part Number to be Produced:

Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

A9574

Quantity:

Quantity:

10

Running Now

10

Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

2

Quantity:

3

10

Final Assy.

Paint C/T

100 sec

C/T

150 sec

Downtime

0%

Downtime

0%

C/O

10 min

C/O

10 sec

Figure 3.4 Diagram showing how information flows from Purchased Parts Market through Paint to Final Assembly.

hour. The driver then picks up the schedule cards that have been made, the kanban cards to be replenished, and any empties that need to be removed. Then the route runner runs the route again. Figure 3.4 shows this process. Making sure the necessary material is effectively, efficiently, and consistently pulled from the Paint market is the key to making information flow upstream in a lean process.

Product Has Been Pulled from the WIP Market … Now What? To utilize a WIP market as a base for information flow, Paint has to know what to put in the market as well as what has been pulled out of the market. To do

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46 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

this, it uses kanban cards. Each time 1 Red Kit Paint finishes 10 red kits, it places a 10 Frames kanban card on those kits that says 10 Bodies “there are 10 red kits here.” The kits are 20 Doors then placed into their WIP market. (See Produced in Figure 3.5.) Paint At this point, many facilities have Card # 1 problems. They know that they need a market, and many of them know how Figure 3.5 Kanban card for one kit. to run a WIP market, but the size of the market is actually the key to good information flow. If the WIP market is sized correctly, it can be used as the central place to let Paint know what it needs to run and when it needs to run.

Sizing the WIP Market Sizing the WIP market takes into account factors such as usage, first time quality, uptime, changeover time, EPEI (every part every interval; that is, how often a facility can make every part and still meet customer demand), and safety stock. This section outlines the methodology used to size the WIP market for Paint. The first step is to determine the actual available production time. This is the time available to actually produce product through the day. This time take into account downtime, quality, changeovers, and other foreseeable issues that take time away from adding the product.

(Total Available Production Time - First Time Quality – Changeover etc.) - Downtime = Actual Available Production Time

The next step is to take the actual available production time and divide it by the demand.

Actual Available Production Time ÷ Time Needed to Meet Average Demand

= Capability The following list provides the information and calculations RNA managers used to determine whether it is possible to run the parts as they would like. Changeover time: Downtime: Processing time per kit: Final Assembly demand:

Average of 10 minutes (600 seconds) 25% (75% uptime) 100 seconds 150 seconds

With this information, RNA began to calculate. It determined that if the company was going to run the runners every day, it would have to change over four times, and if it was going to run the repeaters or a stranger, it would need to changeover

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 47

one more time. This would be a total of five changeovers. Available Production time = 450 minutes (27,000 seconds or 7.5 hours; two 15-minute breaks are subtracted) Five changeovers = (average of 10 minutes × 5) = 50 Minutes Downtime= (25% of 400 minutes of production time) = 100 minutes of total downtime (Note: Downtime is subtracted after changeover time is subtracted) 50 minutes (changeover) + 100 Minutes (downtime) = 150 Minutes = 2.5 hours Actual available production time = 7.5 - 2.5 = 5 hours (18,000 seconds) Now, RNA managers understand that if everything runs the way they want, they will have five hours to produce product each day. They have to determine whether that is enough time and capacity to meet the daily requirements of Final Assembly. Final assembly daily demand = 180 Paint production daily capability = 180 kits (100 seconds per kit) (five changeovers and 25% downtime) Actual Available Production Time ÷ Time Needed to Meet Average Demand = Capability 18,000 seconds (5 hrs) ÷ 18,000 seconds (5 hrs) = 1 day This data tells RNA that it has the capacity in its current system to change over five times in the paint department and still meet customer demand. The chart in Figure 3.6 indicates an effective way for them to run.

Daily Demand

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

60

40

30

20

10

10

0

10

0

0

A

B

C

D

E

Monday

60

40

30

20

20

Tuesday

60

40

30

20

Wednesday

60

40

30

20

Thursday

60

40

30

20

Friday

60

40

30

20

F

20 20 20 20

G

H

I

J

Total Products Made

10

180

10

180

10

180

10

180

10

180

Figure 3.6 Diagram of Daily Demand and Daily Run.

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48 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

The Paint area decided that it was possible to run the runners part numbers every day and the repeaters once every couple of days, and have the ability to run a stranger as needed. RNA can now begin to size its WIP market because its knows it can meet Final Assembly’s demand and still run the runners every day, the repeaters every other day, and a stranger as needed. The beginning size of the WIP market is based on how often a product runs. For example, all the runners will have to hold a minimum of one day’s worth of material. The repeaters will have a minimum of two days of inventory, because they are going to be run every other day. Remember that the Paint department can change over only five times a day. It has to make 180 pieces every day to meet customer demand. Therefore, it will run every part every day, except for Products E and F (those parts are run every other day in a batch size of two days). If the department tried to run Products E and F every day, it would mean another changeover. That changeover would mean taking away about 10 minutes of production time, which in turn would mean that Paint could not meet demand, as follows: Six changeovers = 60 minutes. Downtime = 97.5 minutes Total = 157.5 minutes Actual available production time = 450 minutes – 157.5 minutes Actual available production time = 292.5 minutes Actual production needed = 300 minutes (Not enough time to meet demand)(–7.5 minutes) Now that RNA has an understanding of the minimum amount of inventory to carry in the Paint WIP market, it has to determine how much safety Stock needs in the market. RNA managers decided to hold only the strangers they were currently running in the market as a passthrough. They would make future strangers as they were needed. They decided to hold the repeater part numbers an extra day in the market. This was because they were running these parts only every other day. They wanted to guard against any unforeseen changeover, downtime, or losttime problems that could occur. The runners group was to hold an extra half-day inventory in the system for safety stock. There did not need to be as much safety stock on these part numbers because they were run on a daily basis. Safety stock is often directly related to how often a part is run—that is, the more often a part is produced, the less safety stock is needed. The exception to this is the strangers, which may not be held in the market at all until they need to be produced. Having taken all of this information into account, the average planned size of the WIP market for the paint area was as follows: Product A: 1.5 days Product B: 1.5 days Product C: 1.5 days

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 49

Product Product Product Product Product Product Product

D: 1.5 days E: 3 days F: 3 days G: 0 days H: 1.5 days I: 0 days J: 0 days

In What Order Should the Products Run? Now that RNA knows what product to make and how many to make, it needs to determine in what order to make them. At first glance, it looks like Product A should run first, then B, then C, and so on. However, that is likely not the best way to run this area. Running this way does not take into account the changeover times. The changeover time from Product A to Product B is different from what it is from Product A to Product C. Before all this information can flow, the management at RNA must decide the best way to run. Looking at the changeover matrix for the area in Figure 3.7, the answer becomes clearer. In the following matrix you can see that it takes 15 minutes to change from Product A to B. However, it takes only eight minutes to change from Product A to C. With this information, the Paint area will be more efficient to change from running Product A to running Product C. The next changeover would likely be from Product C to Product B, because it takes 10 minutes, versus 15 minutes to go from C to D. Utilizing the changeover matrix and the capacity to meet customer demand by changing over five times per day, RNA developed the best method sequence of changeover. This concept can also be called a changeover wheel because it gives the best sequence of changeovers. Figure 3.8 shows the plan that RNA used to change over effectively. As you can see, the plan is to run ACBDHE, and that gives an average time of 10 minutes per changeover. RNA chose this method of changeover to keep the WIP market at a low level. A good way to run the Paint department in an efficient manner is to run to a market and not to a separate schedule. TO

FROM

Part A B C D E F G H I J

A

–

B 15 15 15 10 10 15 15 15 15

–

15 10 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

C –

8 15 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

D

–

15 5 15 15 15 15 15 15 15

E

–

15 15 15 15

F

10 15 15 15 15

–

15 15 15 15 10 15 15 15 15

G

–

15 15 15 12 15 15 10 10 10

H

–

15 15 15 12 15 15 10 10 10

I

–

15 15 15 12 15 15 10 10 10

J

–

15 15 15 12 15 15 10 10 10

MINUTES

Figure 3.7 Matrix indicating most efficient changeover sequence.

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50 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Changeover

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

A

C

B

D

H

8

10

5

12

E or F 15

Total changeover time (minutes) 50 10

Average

Figure 3.8 Schedule for day’s changeovers.

How Do You Make This Information Flow? Now that RNA knew what parts to run, how often to run them, and the most efficient sequence to change over, it had to make this information flow. RNA has learned through its implementation that just having the information is not enough— RNA has to make sure the information gets to the right people at the right times. RNA again decided to utilize the route runner to make this information flow, but first had to develop an information flow tool that the route runner could use. The method was to be the same as was used throughout the facility, the method of kanban cards. The information flow tool was going to be a production pull board. A production pull board provides the necessary information that the production area needs to run the product. It lets the production area know what to make and when to make it, as well as when to change over. However, the production pull board can be developed only after all the preceding information in this chapter is accumulated. The production pull board lists across the top of the board the part numbers that are run in each area. However, the part numbers have to be listed in the order that the production area is going to change over. So, for example, the production pull board for the Paint area is set up with the part numbers on the board in the order of ACBDstrangerEF. (See Figure 3.9.) The board is designed to hold the various kanban cards that are made available when a product is pulled from the WIP market in Paint. This is where the route runner connects with the Paint area. The route runner takes the schedule from the market for final assembly and sees that the order requires work-inprocess parts from the Paint area. The route/runner goes by the work-in-process market in the Paint area and removes the needed parts. At this point, the route runner becomes vital to information flow. It is the route runner’s responsibility to take the pull signal (kanban card) off the product when he or she pulls it from the WIP market and place it on the WIP production pull board. For this to happen, there must be a kanban card on each kit that is produced by the Paint department. (The kanban card at RNA has the part number’s, kit size, and location.) The card stays with the kit in the WIP market and is not pulled off the product until the product is pulled from the market by the route runner.

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 51

Figure 3.9 Production pull board for Paint.

This card should never leave the Paint area, and should be in one of only three places: (1) on the product in the WIP market, (2) in the route runner’s hand, or (3) on the production pull board. After the card is pulled, the route runner takes it to the production pull board and places it in the correct column. At this point, the route runner’s responsibility is completed in the Paint area. The production pull board must be very visual, with trigger points in each column. For example, Product A’s trigger point is when there has been 1 day’s worth (6 kanban cards) used by final assembly (pulled out of the market). This is determined through the use of kanban cards. The number of kanban cards in this information loop is calculated by doubling the EPEI and adding the safety stock. The EPEI for Product A is one day (6 kanban cards), therefore there should be 12 kanban cards (2 days) plus 3 kanban cards (1/2 day safety stock) for a total of 15 kanban cards in the loop. By calculating the loop size this way, when a day has been pulled out of the market, the producing department has a full day to produce the product and put it back into the market. Information Loop Calculation: 2 × EPEI (Every Part Every Interval) + Safety Stock

Part A’s Information Loop Calculation: 2 × 6 (1 day’s worth of kanban cards) + 3 (0.5 day’s worth of kanban cards)

= 12 kanban cards in Information Loop

Figure 3.9 illustrates this point. The Paint area is currently running Product A. It is just about to finish its run, so the supervisor goes to the production pull board to see what to run next. When Product C’s trigger point has been reached, the supervisor knows to run Product C.

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52 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Figure 3.10

The cell makes its run of Product a. The supervisor goes to the board again. This time, he or she looks at Product B. The trigger point has not been hit. There could be multiple reasons for this—perhaps Final Assembly had a change in schedule or some unplanned downtime. Anything that kept Final Assembly from pulling parts from Paint’s market would cause Product B not to be at the trigger point. The RNA supervisor goes to the next column, Product D (see Figure 3.10). Product D has reached the trigger point, so Product D will be run. When a product hits the trigger point, the person who gets the cards (normally the supervisor) gets all the cards up to the trigger point and runs them. She or he takes them to a simple running-now board in the area (see Figure 3.11). After all the cards on the running-now board are complete, the Now Running supervisor goes to the production pull board to get the next run. It is important to note a couple of points. The first is that the only cards that are run are those that are pulled by the supervisor. It is possible that the 1 Red Kit board could accumulate more kanban 1 Red Kit cards of the part that is currently run1 Red Kit ning. It is important not go back to the board and get those cards to run, 1 Red Kit because this could cause a disruption in the system—running the same part too Figure 3.11 Board in paint area long and creating a snowball effect in running—now.

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 53

the process. For example, a process is supposed to run only 30 A’s, 30 B’s, and 30 C’s. But, the process runs 40 A’s. Now they are 10 behind on B’s. Now they have to run 40 B’s. Now they are behind 20 on C’s. Now they run 50 C’s, but they are now behind on A’s. The safety stock and run plan for an area needs to be followed because, otherwise, you get large lot sizes, overtime, overproduction—in general, the “old way” of manufacturing. The second point when discussing the production pull board is that there is no need to panic if a part is not triggered—it all equals out in the end. If you pass one part without running it, you also pass the time it takes to change over and run the part. Yes, the changeover sequence may not be optimal, but in the majority of cases, it will all equal out when you return to the part that was not triggered. It is important that the production pull board is followed in order, with no backtracking allowed. To understand backtracking, consider the following example: Product B was not triggered, and the supervisor ran Product D. Now the supervisor goes back to the board and sees that Product B and Product H are now triggered. Product H is the next to run because it follows the planned sequence. A process cannot backtrack and run Product B, or the whole production board will be jeopardized. There is no need to panic. If the market and board are set up properly, then there will be no problem, and Product B can be run when it has its turn on the production pull board.

Lean Connections There is certainly a lot of information in this chapter. Much of that information is on the micro level, describing how to set up a WIP market and find the most effective way to run the area. All this information is important and vital to good information flow. However, at this point we would like to go back to the macro level (big picture) and discuss the process of making information flow at the facility level to show how the WIP market fits into the whole information-flow system. The first step is with the route runner in the purchased parts market. The route runner picks up the next hour’s schedule for Final Assembly. There are other tasks that the route runner does while in the market, mainly replenishing parts that have been consumed on the production floor and making them ready to deliver. The second step is for the route runner to stop at the Paint process and retrieve the necessary parts to make the order just picked up in the purchased parts market. The route runner removes the product from the WIP market. He then removes each kanban card from each kit. He takes the kanban cards and places them in position on the production pull board. The third step is that the tugger goes to Final Assembly and delivers the production schedule and all the parts that are necessary for the order. He or she also picks up the information on what has been made the previous hour. The final step for the tugger is to transport the information of what product was made to the schedule board in the market. This lets Production Control know that a product has been made. The route runner then begins the route again.

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PP7374_C003.indd 54

C

25%

Downtime C/O

100 sec

Paint

2

C/T

F

1

Figure 3.12 Four significant information flow points.

A

Production Pull Board for Paint Running Order Stranger E B D

7:00–8:00 (tomorrow)

2:30–3:30

1:30–2:30

12:30–1:30

11:30–12:30

10:00–11:00

9:15–10:00

8:00–9:00

Make Today

4

2:30–3:30

1:30–2:30

12:30–1:30

11:30–12:30

3

C/O

Downtime

C/T

Final Assy.

10

150 sec

10 sec

0%

10

Quantity:

A9574

Part Number to be Produced:

Running Now

10

A9574

Quantity:

Quantity:

A9574

Complete Part Number to be Produced:

Part Number to be Produced:

Schedule for Cell 11 Running Next

Completed Today

10:00–11:00

9:15–10:00

8:00–9:00

7:00–8:00

Purchased Parts Market

54 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

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Making Information Flow Upstream n 55

The whole picture looks like Figure 3.12, where you can see how the information flows.

Key Points NNThe size of WIP market must be correct. NNKanban cards need to represent (and be attached to) each container or kit. NNA production pull board acts as a changeover wheel and schedule board, telling upstream production processes what product to make and when to make them. NNA route runner is the person who creates information flow by pulling product out of the WIP market and placing the kanban cards on the production pull board.

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Chapter 4

Purchasing and Information Flow In the majority of the facilities with which we work, purchased components make up a large percentage of the cost of goods sold (COGS). Therefore, making information flow from the production floor to Purchasing is important. It is also important that Purchasing be able to communicate to the production floor. Purchasing must be notified by the production floor that it needs to buy (replenish) more product. The production floor needs to be notified whenever there is a change to a purchased component. This chapter outlines proven processes that can make information flow to and from Purchasing.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of Purchasing and its relationship with the production floor. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What information system does your facility use to notify Purchasing that it needs to purchase more products? What information does Purchasing provide to notify Production that there is a change in a purchased component?

57

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58 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

One of the key tenets of lean manufacturing is that it is based on replenishment. In short, that means if you use up a purchased component, you will get another one. If you do not use up a purchased component, a replacement will not be purchased until a part was used. For this system to work properly, Production has to have a good system in place to notify Purchasing that it has consumed a purchased component and that it needs another. The second kind of information is when a part or a supplier changes. Any time a supplier or part changes, the flow of manufacturing is disrupted. That disruption may be small or large, but it is a disruption nonetheless. This is a significant issue because money is made by the manufacturing process, and any time the manufacturing process is disrupted, that costs the company money. We are not saying there should never be part changes, but when there are, that information needs to flow to Production, letting it know that the change is coming. That way, it can prepare for the change. To quickly summarize: the information flow is as follows: Production to Purchasing on what needs to be purchased, and Purchasing to Production when there is a change to a purchased component. 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: Who needs to know when a part is consumed? Who needs to know when a part is changed?

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Purchasing and Information Flow n 59

Many times, we have seen no information flow between Purchasing and Production in either direction. The information we are talking about here is the information on purchased components. Purchasing needs to know what product it needs to buy and when it needs to buy it. Production needs to know when there is a change to a part. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who is responsible for making sure that information about purchased components flows in your facility? Who has the information on when a purchased component is consumed in your facility? Who has the information on when a part is changed in your facility?

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60 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Depending upon how you have developed your lean systems, the person or people who hold information on whether a purchased component has been consumed may vary. In facilities that have effectively developed a timed material delivery route composed of a PFEP (plan for every part), purchased parts market, pull signals, and a tugger route, the route runner holds this information. The reason the route runner holds the information is because he or she is in the purchased parts market taking parts to the production floor. The holders of information on a part change can be many individuals. Of course, if it is a supplier change, Purchasing holds the information, but what about an engineering change? How about a change made to improve quality? Or a change made to meet a customer’s needs? Understanding that there are different organizations that change a part is important when setting up a system that helps this information flow. Because there are two different groups that hold two different kinds of information, it is reasonable to assume that there are two different parties responsible for the information. For the information from Production to Purchasing, the associate who is pulling parts from the purchased parts market is responsible for that information. A system needs to be set up so that this can happen with minimal effort. The second responsible party has to be someone who makes sure all information on all the purchased components is correct in the system and that when there is a change, this change is communicated throughout the organization.

Information Flow and the Purchasing Department at RNA RNA decided to first make sure the information from Production to Purchasing flowed properly. To do this, managers took a long look at their current system—including the way material flowed—and saw an opportunity to make this information flow happen. The way the material flowed at RNA was that all the

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purchased parts for the facility were kept in the purchased parts market. Each part had a designated space, meaning the part number that was in a space one day would be there the next day, the next week, and so on. This is an important point to make because one of the main reasons RNA developed a purchased parts market was to control the inventory. RNA has learned that it cannot control inventory in a computer system. Instead, RNA can only truly control its inventory when it physically controls the inventory. RNA managers used to think they could control their inventory in a computer system, but they realized that when they really needed to know how many parts they had, they had to go to the production floor to count them—so they opted for a manual system of inventory control. Take, for example, the plant layout in Figure 4.1, which was drawn before RNA implemented its timed delivery route. Purchased components were taken directly from Receiving to the production floor. RNA managers learned that its system may tell them that the parts they are looking for are in the facility, but it does not tell them exactly where they are in the facility. This lack of control often lead to RNA’s expediting parts that were already in the facility. RNA managers came to the conclusion that they could not control inventory this way and that they needed to implement a purchased parts market so that they could control inventory. As soon as they completed the implementation of a purchased parts market, they saw a significant change on the production floor (see Figure 4.2).

** Denotes one skid of inventory. Entrance and oﬃce area

Receiving and Shipping Dock Operations Oﬃce Area

Empty area due to ﬂoor space gained in creating continuous ﬂow activities

Empty area due to ﬂoor space gained in creating continuous ﬂow activities

Figure 4.1 Unorganized material pre-lean.

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62 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively ** Denotes one skid of inventory. Entrance and oﬃce area

Receiving and Shipping Dock Operations Oﬃce Area

Figure 4.2 Plant layout with Purchased Parts Market.

When an organization like RNA implements a purchased parts market, it normally results in more usable floor space, a cleaner and more organized work environment, and significantly better control over purchased components. Figure 4.3 illustrates how a purchased parts market lends itself to being able to control the inventory. Each spot in the market, whether it is a box on a flow rack or a box on a pallet, is well identified. There is no guesswork as to which part is in which place. There are also minimum and maximum levels for each part number. After RNA put this system into place, the company had control over its inventory, because it knew exactly which part was where and how many of those parts should be there.

Using a Purchased Parts Market to Make Information Flow After RNA had its purchased parts market in place, how could the purchased parts market help make information flow? It is much easier to make information flow when you have a system already in place, because that system can be added onto to make other areas in the facility more efficient. Take, for example, the link that RNA developed between the purchased parts market and Purchasing. The one key point that RNA managers wanted to keep in mind was that they needed the route runner—the person who took the parts from the purchased parts market to the production floor—to remain on his or her timed schedule.

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Purchasing and Information Flow n 63 Supermarket

C B A 1

2

3

4

Part number: Address: Min: Max:

Figure 4.3 Inside workings of Purchased Parts Market.

The route runner in the RNA facility had become an integral part of the efficiency of the system. In Chapter 2 of this book, the route runner was assigned to take the schedule and purchased components out to the production area every hour. In Chapter 3, the route runner was charged with moving work in process parts and placing production kanbans on the production board so that the upstream process knew what they needed to make. Figure 4.4 shows the process of tying all of this together. The first step that the route runner takes is to record on the schedule board what had been made the previous hour. The second step is to pick up the schedule that is to be taken to Production the next hour. The third step that the route runner performs is to collect all the purchased components there are to pull cards for. He or she loads the cart with these parts. The fourth step is the actual route, during which the driver stops at the various areas of the facility and drops off purchased components, picks up pull signals, and picks up empty containers. The route runner also takes any WIP parts from the WIP market that need to be moved, places the kanban card on the production board, and moves the parts to the next downstream process. The last stop that the route runner makes is at the pacemaker process, where purchased components and WIP components are delivered, the schedule is placed, and the schedule that has been made is picked up. As you can see, the route runner is critical to making information flow through the production floor. RNA managers wanted to make sure this process

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64 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Make Today 8:00–9:00 9:15–10:00 10:00–11:00 11:30–12:30 12:30–1:30 1:30–2:30 2:30–3:30 7:00–8:00 (tomorrow)

Completed Today 7:00–8:00 8:00–9:00 9:15–10:00 10:00–11:00 11:30–12:30 12:30–1:30 1:30–2:30 2:30–3:30

Running Next

Schedule for Cell 11

Complete

Part Number to be Produced:

Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

A9574

Quantity:

Quantity:

10

10

Running Now Part Number to be Produced:

A9574

Quantity:

10

Final Assy. C/T

150 sec

Downtime

0%

C/O

0 sec

Paint C/T

100 sec

Downtime

0%

C/O

10 min

Figure 4.4 Overall information flow including Purchase Parts Market.

was not interrupted, but they also thought the route runner was the best person to let Purchasing know what had been consumed.

Information Flow from Production to Purchasing RNA developed pull signals for all the parts in its purchased parts market. This way, when a box in the purchased parts market was opened, the route runner could take the pull signal (kanban card) from the box and place it in the holder.

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Purchasing and Information Flow n 65 Supermarket

1

2

3

4

C B A

Kanban Holders

Figure 4.5 Purchased Parts Market with kanban holders.

This process was very simple for the route runner. There were various card holders throughout the market. All the route runner was asked to do was to pull the card and place it in the card holder when he or she opened a box in the purchased parts market. This was the extent of the route runner’s information flow to purchasing. (See Figure 4.5.) RNA wanted to make it simple and efficient for the route runner because this position was so important to the facility. Every shift, someone from the Purchasing department would walk through the purchased parts market and collect the pull signals, and would then go back to his or her office and order the parts that needed to be ordered. This may seem very simple, but that was the point. All the route runner needed to do was to let Purchasing know what they needed to order, and the managers accomplished this task through this simple system. A common question is: “What is the reorder point?”—that is, the point at which a part should be reordered from the supplier. The answer from a Production point of view is that there is no reorder point. This system is based on replenishment, so when a box is consumed out of the market, it is reordered. However, many organizations that are implementing lean production find themselves in less-than-perfect relationships with their suppliers and have to order certain quantities on certain days or at certain times. All that is required, in terms of communication from Production to Purchasing is that the production floor needs to notify Purchasing that a purchased component has been used. This is done easily and efficiently by pulling the kanban card off the box and placing it in the card holder. It is then Purchasing’s responsibility to order the part, as its agreements indicate.

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66 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Information Flow from Purchasing to Production: PFEP Now that RNA had implemented a system to notify Purchasing when a part was consumed, managers had to take a look at the information flowing in the opposite direction. The information flow from Purchasing (or from other areas that may need to change a part such as Engineering, Quality, Sales, and so on) to Production needs to be developed. RNA decided to utilize a system that it already had in place to make this information flow. That system was the PFEP (Harris et al., 2003). The PFEP (plan for every part) is a database that RNA developed to implement its timed delivery system, as well as to hold detailed information on all the parts in the facility. The PFEP holds information such as the part number, supplier, size, weight, location in market, min level, max level, and so on. To keep the PFEP up to date and correct, RNA identified a PFEP manager. This was the only person in the facility who could change the PFEP. Everyone in the facility could look at the document, sort the document, and print the document, but only the PFEP manager could make changes to the document. With this structure already in place, RNA managers decided they could use the PFEP to effectively get information from Purchasing to Production. The first step was to make it mandatory that any part used or brought onto the production floor had to be correctly identified on the PFEP. From this mandatory practice, RNA’s second step came about: Develop a system to update the PFEP. First, managers developed a standard form to change the PFEP. It was entitled the PFEP change request form. Figure 4.6 shows the form that RNA developed. After they developed the PFEP change request form, RNA had to develop a method to fill it out and get it approved. During implementation of a timed delivery route, RNA developed a triangle of involvement as it pertains to parts in the facility (see Figure 4.7). The triangle is composed of a person from the Production Control department, Production, and Industrial Engineering. Any decision concerning a part in the RNA facility had to have input from each member of the triangle. RNA did not want any decisions made about material movement, part changes, supplier changes, and so on without input from these three important groups. With this in mind, RNA managers developed the following process. Whenever someone wanted to change a part, he or she had to fill out the PFEP change request form and print it out. This is an important point: the change request form had to be printed. The person then wanting to make the change has to walk to each member of the triangle with the PFEP change request form in hand. Interoffice mail and e-mail were not acceptable. The point of this process was to make information flow. When the person wanting to change a part on the information flow had to walk the document to someone, he or she also had to communicate. The two likely had to discuss the proposed change, why the change was occurring, and the time frame of

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Purchasing and Information Flow n 67 RNA PFEP Change Request Form Change Request by: Date: Reason:

Part # Description Daily Usage

(Complete Changed Fields Below)

Usage Location Storage Location Order Frequency Shipment Size Supplier Supplier City Supplier State Container Type Box Weight 1 Part Weight Total Package Weight Length Width Height Usage per Assembly Hourly Usage Standard Pack Quantity Packs Used per Hour Carrier Transit Time # of Pulls in Loop Supplier Performance Material Control

Operations

Industrial Engineering

Operations Approval: Material Control Approval: Industrial Engineering Approval: PFEP Manager Approval:

Figure 4.6 PFEP Change Request Form.

the change. By making the person walk to each person on the triangle and get approval, information had to flow. After each member of the triangle signed off, the document could then be taken to the PFEP manager, who would then enter the new information into the PFEP. In this way, the information on a part change was made to flow from the person making the change (in this case, Purchasing) to the production floor.

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68 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively Production Control

Production

Industrial Engineering

Figure 4.7 Triangle of involvement.

Putting It All Together RNA was able to utilize its existing lean production systems to make information flow in its facility. The timed delivery route has turned out to be a key to continually improving the facility, taking the schedule to Production, moving purchased parts to the production floor, moving WIP parts on the production floor, and notifying Purchasing that it needs to order more products. A critical part of the development and continual improvement of the timed delivery route, the PFEP, was used to make information flow from those departments that change parts to Production. RNA found that, by taking the necessary time and effort and properly implementing a robust system, it is better able to improve its system. RNA managers knew that there could be no improvements without standards to improve. Many organizations have some success with various kaizen events, but they lack the long-term sustainability of a total lean system. The key to success when implementing lean production systems lies in using a systems-based approach versus applying a lot of different tools. Implementing efficient and robust systems provides the environment for sustainability and continuous improvement. RNA proved this point well by utilizing its existing system to make information flow on the production floor.

Key Points NNRealize that there is a two-way direction for information flow. NNDevelop additions to existing systems to accomplish information-flow goals. NNMake sure that all information flows as part of a system. NNWork with Purchasing to develop systems from which both Production and Purchasing can benefit.

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Chapter 5

Making Quality Information Flow Successful lean implementers are often asked a popular question whose answer may surprise you. The question is, “Now that you have had a great deal of success implementing lean manufacturing principles, if you had to do it all again, what would you do differently?” The top two answers to this question are almost always the same. First is workplace organization. People who have had success implementing lean production systems say that they would really focus on workplace organization from day one. This is interesting, because much of the literature states that workplace organization is a great place to begin a lean initiative. The reason many people do not give this area a lot of attention at the beginning of the implementation, however, is that workplace organization does not show up on the books as a line item. There is no line item that says, “Workplace organization … $5,000 saved.” Most people know that organizing the workplace is the right thing to do; they just choose to focus their efforts on other implementation efforts that show up on the books. The second process that successful lean implementers would do differently is that they would focus on quality from day one. At the beginning of an implementation, many people do not concentrate on quality. It is part of the old culture where statements like, “Just rework the product” or “just keep producing and sort out the bad ones” were commonplace. In a lean environment, quality is a big issue because any time there is a quality issue, it disrupts the manufacturing flow. Any time the manufacturing flow is disrupted, it costs the company money in the form of downtime, unplanned changeover, missed shipments, and so on. Good quality is vital to a healthy operation. Understanding that quality is very important to any facility, especially those firms implementing lean production, we have to begin to investigate quality. The purpose of this chapter is not to discuss quality problems or their cause. The purpose of this chapter is to develop a methodology for making quality information flow in a manufacturing facility. Everyone’s quality problems are 69

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different, but the way to make quality information flow can be quite similar in lean manufacturing facilities. This chapter outlines that methodology.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of quality—specifically, how a system is developed to get real-time quality information to those who can help quickly correct a quality problem. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What information do you have on the quality of any given area in your facility right now? How are they running at this very minute? Is there a quality problem right now?

There are two different types of quality information flow. The first is the classical kind of information flow in which you have reports that show the quality level. This type of information flow can take the form of a percentage in PPM (pieces per million), FTQ (first time quality), or as other quality information. The one thing

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Making Quality Information Flow n 71

that all these forms of quality information flow have in common is that they are all historical data. This information tells you only what has happened in the past. The second type of information flow concerning quality is different. This type of information on quality is very seldom used outside of firms that are implementing lean production systems. The second type of quality information is immediate and in real time. This concept is defined throughout this chapter, but the methods originate from the andon system made popular by Toyota. Many firms have come to rely on historical data as a way to improve quality. This chapter does not aim to contradict that process, but to add to it. Historical quality data is very important to the facility. As you will see throughout the remainder of this book, historical quality data plays a fairly significant part in the information flow of a facility. The information we discuss in this chapter is information on the real-time quality, or the quality of a process right now. Is the operator having a quality problem? Is the process receiving bad parts from a previous supplier? Is the process receiving bad product from a supplier? Is the operator having problems with the assembly process that could cause poor quality? The answer to these questions is what we are looking for in this chapter. 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: In your facility, who would benefit the most from having real-time information on quality? Is it management? Is it production?

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The answer to this question is management and support staff. Management needs the information to make strategic decision on what needs to be done to improve quality. Support staff, such as Quality, Production Control, and even Maintenance (covered in Chapter 6) needs this information so that they can make quick decisions and so that Production can run as efficiently as possible. In other words, this information is needed by those who can help remedy the quality problem as it is happening. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who has information on quality problems in your facility? Should that person be the one who has such information in your facility?

The person with real-time quality information in a facility is the person closest to the quality problem. That person is most often the production associate. The production associate normally sees the quality problem first and knows why there is a problem. Sometimes, the production associate can see that there is going to be a quality problem before there actually is one. At this point, the question that is often asked during our discussions with those implementing lean production is, “If they can see the quality problem first

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Making Quality Information Flow n 73

or know that a quality problem is coming, why do they not tell us?” This question gets to the root cause of the problem. The answer is another question: “Have you given production associates a method to notify you immediately when they have a problem?” The answer to that question in often “no.” How do you develop a system of information flow so that production associates can let management know immediately when there is a problem?

The Andon System One of the most misunderstood concepts of the Toyota production system is the andon system. If you have studied Toyota, you may have heard that it reports very low defect rates by its employees. For example, it is not uncommon for an employee on a Toyota assembly line to go a year without causing a defect. This is a significant number, because if you were to calculate the average number of parts an operator puts on a car in a Toyota production plant in a year, the number could be well into the hundreds of thousands. How is that even possible? Well, the answer is that Toyota places such an importance on quality that it has developed a comprehensive system to get real time data on a quality problem. This system, as you may have already guessed is called the andon system. The andon system can take various forms, but the most popular is a rope that runs behind each operator on the production line (see Figure 5.1). It is the responsibility of the operator to pull the rope if he or she experiences any difficulty during the process. This includes a quality problem he or she caused, a quality problem he or she noticed, quality problems that are coming from different areas, quality problems from suppliers, as well as if one is simply falling behind and needing help. (If a person cannot catch up, he or she will eventually have to cut a corner, thus causing a quality problem). All these are directly related to quality. Quality is such an important factor that Toyota has a system in place so that when a problem arises the operator pulls the rope and stops production. Although the production line will stop when the andon is pulled, it does not stop in the middle of a process, it stops at the L10 fixed-stop position. The L10

Andon Rope

Figure 5.1 Diagram of Andon Roping System.

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74 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

L10 fixed-Stop Position

Figure 5.2 Diagram indicating LIO fixed stop position.

fixed-stop position is the position where the new car starts. The reason that the line stops only at the LIO fixed-stop position is that if it stopped in the middle of the process, it would cause a quality problem itself, because associates would have to determine where they just stopped and start up again. Therefore, when the rope is pulled, the line does not stop right away; it stops when the product gets to the end of the station. So, when the rope is pulled, everyone continues to work until the line stops. When the line stops, everyone, with the exception of the person who pulled the rope, should be completely finished with their processes. When the line resumes, everyone begins work at the beginning of their processes at the same time. Figure 5.2 illustrates what the system looks like when the rope is pulled and when the line stops. Toyota gives its production employees the opportunity to pull the andon and stop the line. However, this is only the beginning of the system. When the rope is pulled, a light comes on and a sound comes from the area where the rope was pulled. It is very important to understand that there is a visual and an audible indicator when a rope is pulled. The sound is to alert that a rope has been pulled, and the light indicates which rope has been pulled. Take a look at a possible andon board in Figure 5.3. Each letter is a process. When the sound goes off, a person can look at this board and know which process is having the problem. This is real-time information. At the moment there is a problem, there is also a notification. The next step

Cell 11 Pull Signal Pickup Quality Stop Maintenance Call

Daily Rate

A

B

D

E

C

Figure 5.3 Andon Board.

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Making Quality Information Flow n 75

is to determine which person needs to see that the rope has been pulled. That person is a team leader or production supervisor, depending on the structure in your facility. It is this person’s responsibility to go immediately to the process after seeing that the rope has been pulled. The supervisor or team leader then addresses the problem immediately. The line does not restart until the rope is pulled again. However, the rope can be pulled the second time only by the person who responded to the first pull. This means that there has to be a response to an andon pull before the line can resume.

How Does RNA Make This Concept Work for Its Production System? RNA managers knew that they needed some way to gather real-time quality information. They decided to develop a system modeled after the andon system at Toyota. The first step in their implementation was to give the production associates a way to let them know when there was a problem. They determined that the rope method used at Toyota would not work well in their cellular layout. The rope method is designed more for a traditional assembly line than a manufacturing area without an assembly line. RNA managers knew that they wanted each machine in the manufacturing cell to have the capability of notifying management of a quality problem, so they put a simple light switch on every machine—see Figure 5.4. (RNA began this implementation utilizing a pilot cell. The company had learned from implementation lessons in the past and knew that when it was implementing a new system, it needed to start small to work out the bugs.) The light switch was bright orange so that it was easy to see. Each one Andon Switch was also placed within easy reach of the operators. The day before these switches were installed, RNA presented a one-hour training module on the use of the andon system to the employees Figure 5.4 Andon switch on machine. in the pilot cell. During this training, production associates were trained to switch on the andon whenever they had any problems. The problems could be a bad part, a problem that the associate had during the process, bad incoming product, and so on. The production associates were encouraged to switch on the andon when they had a problem, because RNA would rather stop production and get it right than let a problem go through the system. The associates were further instructed that when they turned on the andon switch, they needed to stand and wait for the team leader or supervisor. When they got there, the associate was to tell the them in detail what the problem was, and then they could together determine the next step. Accompanying the andon switches was an andon board. This board was designed to immediately show which machine had switched on the andon. RNA made sure there was an audible sound connected with the andon switch, including

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76 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Cell 11 Pull Signal Pickup Quality Stop Maintenance Call

Daily Rate

A

B

D

E

C

Figure 5.5 Andon board with machine D andon lighted.

a different chime for each manufacturing area. This way, the supervisor could know by the sound of the chime which andon board to look at. After the supervisor looked at the andon board, she or he knew exactly which machine to go to (see Figure 5.5).

Implementing Andon RNA management realized it had a problem at this point in the impleMachine mentation. The company had not D clearly identified each machine in the Andon manufacturing area. This must be done Switch immediately, because the supervisor had to be able to know which machine was which when he or she got to the manufacturing area. (See Figure 5.6). Figure 5.6 Visual control of machine. Now that they had all the hardware set up, RNA had put a system in place to make this work. The system it chose to put in place was fairly simple. When the andon switch was flipped, the team leader of the area had to be at the machine immediately. It was then necessary to make a determination as to whether the team leader could remedy the problem or if he or she had to get support from another area such as Maintenance (discussed in Chapter 6). This was very simple, and that was what RNA was looking for. Management wanted production team leaders to be responsible for making the decisions after the andon was on.

Quality Control Alarm Limits Now that the basis for the andon system was in place, RNA wanted to take it to the next level. RNA was currently dealing with the problem of defective parts from upstream processes. It needed to develop a way to keep upstream processes from continuing to produce bad parts.

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Making Quality Information Flow n 77

RNA came up with the idea of quality control alarm limits. This was a system, like the andon system, that could shut down the production area. When the alarm limit was hit, production had to shut down until the problem was remedied. For example, the paint area at RNA had a problem from time to time with runs in the paint. There is a quick fix for this problem, but it sometimes took a lot of time to figure out that there was a problem. This proved to be very costly for RNA because a great deal of labor and material had already been invested in the part after it came out of the paint department. RNA set a quality control limit on this part at five. This meant that within a given amount of time (for RNA it was four hours), if the paint department sent five bad parts to Final Assembly, Final Assembly would shut down until the problem was fixed at Paint. As you can imagine, this situation not only caused a great deal of panic in the facility because Final Assembly was not running, but also put pressure on the paint department to get the problem corrected. (See Figure 5.7.) Alarm limits are set based upon risk. For example, a part that has a lot of material and labor already invested in it is much more expensive to the organization than a part that has very little material and labor. Therefore, the greatest risk lies with the part that has a lot of labor and material. The alarm limit for this type of part is normally much smaller, meaning that the system will accept fewer defective parts before shutting down production, versus a part that is low risk. A low-risk part may have a quality alarm limit with many pieces, or may not have an alarm limit at all. This thought process is different from in the past, when the final assembly supervisor would have continued to run whatever parts he could get his hands on. This can cost the company a lot of money in scrap, because (for example) the paint department just continued to produce product even though a significant percentage of those parts was bad. Paint just continued to produce because Final Assembly was using the good parts, and Paint did not want to stop production to fix the quality problem. But with this new system, Paint has no choice but to fix the problem. The information that is flowing in this portion of the system is back upstream to Paint and to management, letting them know they have a serious quality problem that needs immediate attention.

Alarm Limit is 5.

Figure 5.7 Diagram of alarm limits.

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Purchased Parts As RNA went through this implementation process, it began to ask whether it needed quality alarm limits for purchased parts. RNA was attempting to develop partnerships with its suppliers. It was starting to make information flow between Purchasing and Production Control, but were just not there yet. RNA has no doubt that when it is able to develop partnerships with all its key suppliers, there will be minimal need to have alarm limits within its system. For now, however, it is necessary to deal with quality problems from their suppliers. To do this, the company is not going to have alarm limits, but will have a zero tolerance policy. If it ever receives a defect from a supplier, RNA will insist that the suppliers come into the facility and inspect 100% of the product for two weeks. This may sound extreme, but why should RNA have to inspect parts that they have purchased from a supplier? The answer is that they should not. RNA must have good parts from suppliers and until partnerships are developed, steps must be taken to be sure that the parts from its suppliers are good. Any quality problem from either internal or external processes disrupts the flow of manufacturing, and any time the flow in manufacturing is disrupted, it costs the company money.

The Andon System and Information Flow The andon system provides vital information on quality. It gives the production associates and supervisors a way to communicate quickly, and if a good support system is developed around the andon system, it can be an effective tool to solve small quality problems before they become big quality problems. When we think of information flow, we often think of the schedule or pull signals and although those are certainly important, information on real-time quality issues is also important information that a facility implementing lean production needs to be able to handle. To take it one step further, firms implementing lean production systems need to be very good at making quality information flow.

Key Points NNDevelop a way for the production associates to immediately notify management when there is a problem. NNProperly train the production associates on the proper use of the andon system. NNProperly train the team leaders and supervisors on the correct way to respond to andons. NNProvide a very visual and audible way to see andons (andon board) NNDevelop alarm limits for high-risk parts. NNMake sure that you get good quality parts from your supplier.

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Chapter 6

Making Uptime Information Flow After RNA developed a level schedule based on takt time, along with tools to immediately recognize and fix quality problems, management realized that something else was missing: information on uptime. RNA had certainly improved its information flow throughout the facility, but the maintenance organization had been left out of the loop to this point.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of the maintenance department. The sooner Maintenance knows that it needs to fix a problem, the sooner the technicians can get there to take care of it. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What do you think is the information concerning uptime in your facility? Do you currently provide that information to whom it needs to be provided on a timely basis?

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The information on uptime is important to a manufacturing facility. Machine uptime is defined as the time that a machine is running, or capable of running. Machine downtime is when the machine is not available for manufacturing to run when it is required to run. In other words, it is the time that the machine should be running, but it is not because of a problem with the machine. Many companies include in downtime calculations such circumstances as material shortage, people not at their stations, and plain old lost time, as well as machine time. Organizations are better off listing these as separate issues when dealing with downtime, in order to focus the information. Specifically, the information that Maintenance needs is machine downtime. However, there are different forms of downtime information. There is historical downtime information. This would be end-of-the-month reports or end-ofthe-day reports. Then there is actionable downtime information, which is when the machine goes (and remains) down. This is information that can be acted upon and used by Maintenance to quickly realize and solve a downtime issue. 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: In your facility, who benefits most by having information about downtime? Does that person or group of people get the information on downtime in a way that can help better the facility’s uptime?

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Making Uptime Information Flow n 81

Two groups need information about uptime. The first is management. Management needs to be able to see uptime information at the value stream level to evaluate the health of the entire value stream. However, having that information does not directly help improve the uptime of the facility. There are many different resources on how facilities increase their uptime, but the missing link seems often to be the immediate attention needed because of a maintenance problem. The second group, the maintenance department does not need historical information on uptime as much as it needs to know the exact time that the machine went down so it can get the machine back up and running. A facility implementing a lean production system needs to develop a system so that Maintenance knows there is a problem and can get the problem fixed quickly. When a facility is running to takt time, every second of downtime counts and every minute of downtime costs money. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who holds the information on actionable downtime?

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Maintenance owns uptime. However, although that department owns uptime as a whole, Maintenance does not hold the necessary information on downtime. Information on actionable downtime is not held anywhere, which makes it different from other forms of information flow. The actionable information as it pertains to maintenance does not exist until a machine breaks down. At that point, there is information. Production associates hold the information because they are the first to see that the machine has broken down. The production associate, however, adds value to the product in the eyes of the customer, so you do not want them having to chase down a maintenance associate to fix the problem. What needs to be developed is a system of information flow to notify Maintenance that a machine is down.

The First Step to Maintenance Information Flow RNA had made a big leap in the way that it reacted to downtime, compared with before the company began its implementation of a lean production system. Before lean implementation, when a machine broke down the production associate would go look for a maintenance technician or tell the supervisor (who would go and look for a maintenance technician). Then, whoever found the technician, would try to explain the machine and the problem. The technician would then go look at the problem and decide what to do. If he or she decided some tools were needed, he or she would go get a toolbox and come back to fix the machine. This was not a very efficient system—the urgency to get the machine fixed was not present. Now, by running to takt time, the RNA facility sees the need to get machines fixed right away. RNA managers’ first step in having information flow to the maintenance area was to determine what they wanted to happen when a machine broke down, as well as what they did not want to happen. When a machine broke down, they wanted to get a maintenance technician there as soon as possible and ready to fix the problem. What they did not want to happen when the machine broke down was for the production associate to go find a maintenance technician, because that was not a very efficient way to get the right maintenance technician there. It also caused the

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Making Uptime Information Flow n 83

value-added production associate to have to leave the work area for non-valueadding activities. Understanding these principles, RNA had to develop a way for each value-added associate to quickly and directly notify the maintenance organization without having to leave the area to go look for a maintenance technician.

Andon Systems and Maintenance RNA has already enjoyed the success of kanban systems and the quality andon system. The company began to wonder whether the same principles of information flow could apply to the maintenance organization. Thinking about the andon board in quality, the managers decided that they could use the system to help with the response time of the maintenance organization. They had already wired each machine with a switch to the andon board. They now had to determine how to link that system to Maintenance. Just knowing that the switch was flipped did not notify the maintenance department that it had to go to the area. Maintenance had to find out whether the andon switch was flipped for a machine issue. To do this, RNA developed a system of radio communication. RNA provided all team leaders, supervisors, and maintenance technicians with radios and instituted the following escalation system to be sure that the necessary information made it from the production floor to maintenance. 1. Andon switch flipped. 2. Team leader or supervisor arrives immediately to asses the situation. 3. Team leader or supervisor calls maintenance on the radio to notify a need to get the machine running. 4. Maintenance arrives in less than two minutes to address the situation. 5. If no one is at the machine in five minutes, the production supervisor calls the maintenance supervisor to get assistance. 6. If no one is at the machine in 10 minutes, the production supervisor calls the maintenance manager to get assistance. 7. If no one is at the machine in 15 minutes, the production supervisor calls the plant manager supervisor to get assistance. Maintenance should show up at the area ready to fix the problem. This includes bringing tools that are commonly used to repair the machine. Before the implementation of this notification system, it would not have been reasonable to ask. Now, knowing which machine is down, maintenance technicians can be prepared when they arrive in the area.

Information Flow at the Machine The maintenance organization at RNA had done a good job of developing ways to improve uptime and quickly fix problems through their implementation. One

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of the ideas that was implemented at RNA was the concept of standard trouble shooting matrix, a laminated piece of paper on every machine in the RNA facility. It contains the five most common reasons a machine breaks down and the countermeasures that are needed to get the machine back up and running. The trouble-shooting matrix was a list of items to check. So, if a maintenance operator came to a machine that was down, he or she had a place to start. This list was developed by past information and performance of the machine. This also helped to deal with the problems of specialized maintenance technicians, because now someone who had never worked with a machine at least had a starting point. This was not new information at RNA. This information was held in various computers and with the individual maintenance technicians throughout the facility. RNA just needed to take this information and make it flow by putting it on a visual and using easy-to-understand documentation, as demonstrated in Figure 6.1. The next step that the RNA maintenance organization took to make information flow at the machine was to add color to the gauges on the machines. In the philosophy of continuous improvement, RNA saw some immediate improvements that could be done to improve uptime in the area. The first was to begin to implement visual controls in the area. The most significant quick improvement was color coordinating all the gauges in the area. Two colors, red and green, were used. Of course, if the gauge was in the green, everything was okay, and if the gauge was in the red, action needed to be taken. (See Figure 6.2.) This was not enough, however. RNA managers asked their production associates to check all their gauges at the beginning of the shift startup and to be sure they were in the acceptable area. They also insisted that, once per day, a maintenance operator walk through the areas and check the gauges to be sure that everything was acceptable. If not, action needed to be taken immediately to make sure that there was not a future problem. By utilizing the radio communication system, RNA has put an information flow system in place so that the maintenance technicians can be routed to where they need to be quickly. It has also taken some steps to make the information flow at the machine. It has done this through the trouble-shooting matrix and color-coded gauges. Trouble-Shooting Matrix Crimp Machine Check 1. Check valve on bottom left of machine. 2. Check electrical connection. 3. Make sure water flow is unobstructed. 4. Light curtain line up. 5. Check lubricant in back of machine.

Fix Remove obstruction from valve. Plug in machine. Remove obstruction. Correctly line up light curtains. Lubricate per instruction on machine.

Figure 6.1 Trouble-shooting matrix.

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Making Uptime Information Flow n 85

0

25

50

75

100

Figure 6.2 Color coded gauge.

Key Points NNRecognize the difference between historical uptime data and actionable uptime information. NNWhen a machine breaks down, get the information from production associate to maintenance quickly and efficiently. NNDevelop a method of communication so that the maintenance organization can respond in less than two minutes. NNMake information flow at the machine level so that a maintenance technician can check for the most common problems first.

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Chapter 7

Information at the Process Level After determining the most effective way to move information to and on the production floor, RNA continued to look for ways to improve and connect its information flow. Managers turned their focus to the individual processes on the production floor. The management at RNA had to determine what information each production associate needed and how to get that information to them.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of standardized work, a key to an effective, efficient production environment that consistently provides excellent quality. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What information do you think should be at the process level? Do you currently have the right information at the process level?

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RNA determined that the information at the process level was standardized work. For employees to correctly perform work, they need to be provided with correct standards to do the work. Standardized work is important to the organization because it is one of the pillars of a lean production system. By doing the process the same way every time, the method used can reasonably be used to improve quality. Quality problems often occur from some type of variability in the process, such as using a method of assembly different from the one that is normally used. By being able to count on the production associate to do the work the same way every time, quality will almost certainly be improved. A second point to be made in the discussion of standardized work is that efficiency can be sustained by doing the process the same way every time. If the standard work is set up to be completed every 55 seconds, it is reasonable to expect that if the standardized work is done correctly that it should be done at very close to the 55 seconds. This gives stability to the process, which is a necessity to continuous improvement. RNA has come to believe in this statement: “There can be no improvements unless there are standards to improve on.” Finally, the standardized work links to the production schedule because it provides management with the time that it takes to do the process. With this information in hand, production supervisors can properly staff the area. Chapter 8 covers this concept in more detail, but it is important to note here that developing standards at the process level provides the solid foundation for an efficient production system. 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: What information do your production associates have at each workstation? What information should they have at each work station? Does management need any information at the workstation?

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Information at the Process Level n 89

RNA’s first assumption was that only the hourly operators required standardized work. This assumption seemed to be a safe one, but after further investigation, the managers determined that others needed the information as well. RNA came to the conclusion that after only a short period of time, production associates would be very good at standardized work because they were professionals and they did the work every day. However, managers and engineers charged with auditing the process (covered in detail in Chapter 9) for improvement ideas would also need to see the standardized work. This meant that standardized work was not only for the production associates, but was also important to managers and engineers because standardized work is the basis for continuous improvement. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Do you have standardized work? Who is responsible for your standardized work?

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The first concern when answering the previous question is whether standardized work exists. In many organizations beginning their lean journeys, and even those that have been on the journey for a while, this information does not exist. It must be developed. Standardized work is different from conventional work instructions. Standardized work is much more detailed. Both operator and machine times are indicated at each step in the process, with the steps being listed in the order that they are to be performed. RNA has found through its implementation process that it is not the job of the production associate to write his or her own standardized work. Instead, industrial engineers (IEs, also called manufacturing engineers or production engineers) have done a good job of writing the standardized work, as long as they have a great deal of input from the production associates. With this thought in mind, RNA determined that the industrial engineers in the facility would be responsible for the development and dissemination of the standardized work. Other facilities may not have industrial engineers per se, but they likely have manufacturing engineers or other types of engineers who are well equipped to handle the job of developing and writing the standardized work.

Developing Standardized Work Exercise: Is there one best method for putting your product together? If yes, where is the information on that method kept? Is it easily accessible for the operator and management? If no, describe how you can achieve exceptional quality with variability in the process.

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Now that RNA has answered the three questions to get started, they can focus on the details of developing standardized work—determining the one best method for putting a product together, and then working on improving that method. For example, suppose a production associate on first shift is doing the job one way and the production associate on second shift is doing the job a different way. Now there is variation in the process. For RNA, as with almost every other manufacturing facility, variation in the process is a bad thing. It opens the door for quality problems to occur. However, just because a facility gets to the point that it has standardized work, it doesn’t mean it should stop improving the processes. For example, if the production associate on first shift is correctly performing standardized work and the person on second shift has found a “better method,” that better method should become the new standard. With these ideas in mind, RNA came to the conclusion that it needed standardized work at every work station, along with a robust system of auditing and communication to be sure that the standardized work was being followed and that improvement opportunities were quickly identified and communicated to industrial engineers (IEs). It would then be an IE’s task to update the standardized work. All this sounded good, but RNA quickly came to the realization that it did not have the standardized work at the process level and needed to develop it. RNA charged the IEs to develop the standardized work. Although developing standardized work is different from the time studies and work instructions they had created in the past, the management at RNA believed that the IEs could successfully transfer their skills into the area of developing standardized work. After being charged with this important task, the IEs had to determine the best way to develop standardized work. The production associates on the floor

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Industrial Engineering

Production

Lean Coordinator

Figure 7.1 Triangle of involvement for standardized work development.

were prepared to see IEs on the production floor with clipboards and stop watches because of the training that they received on continuous flow. The training was part of RNA’s effort to develop a lean workforce. Yet, even though production associates were prepared for IEs to spend time out to the floor, the IEs coordinated this effort so that no one was surprised when the IEs came to each area. Remember: standardized work needs to be developed for each product family and IEs need to spend time observing and speaking with production associates and supervisors. As with many of their implementation initiatives, RNA created a triangle of involvement for developing standardized work (see Figure 7.1). This triangle consisted of IEs (because they were the ones who were responsible for developing the standard work), Production (which needed to be informed when the IEs were coming to the floor to develop standardized work), and the lean coordinator (who gets constant feedback and questions as he or she walks the production floor, making it good idea for him or her to be informed about—even if not directly involved in—every facet of the lean implementation). Developing standardized work is a detailed and time-consuming task. RNA learned this with its first attempt at developing standardized work. The wheel assembly process targeted for standardized work (chosen because it was a simple process with which to start) had seven separate parts that were assembled so that the wheels would operate properly. It was a good idea to begin a new implementation initiative on a small scale so that everyone could learn, but in this case, even the small scale was pretty in depth. The IEs at RNA discovered that developing standardized work was more detailed and difficult than they had originally thought. The first step they took was to get all the information that they could on each of the five part numbers. This was an easy task because the information was already gathered in the Plan for Every Part8. After they had the information on 8

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The Plan For Every Part is a detailed database containing information on every part in the manufacturing facility. See Harris, R., et al. (2003).

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Task # 1 2 3 4 5 6

Work Element Get wheel and washer and hold washer onto wheel. Get another washer and hold it on the other side of the wheel. Get wheel shaft and place it through the washers and wheel. Get end cap and place on shaft outside of wheel. Get metal holder and place down shaft on other side of the wheel. Get tire and place on wheel.

Figure 7.2 List of work elements.

the parts and had coordinated with Production so that associates knew the IE was coming into the area, the IE made his or her way to the area. The IE was positioned so that he or she could watch the hand motions of the production associate doing wheel assembly. The IE watched as the operator took the wheel and a washer, placed the washer on one side of the wheel, turned it over, and placed a washer on the other side of the wheel. The next step was to take the wheel shaft and place it through the wheel and washers. After that, an end cap was placed on the shaft to keep the wheel from falling off. The next step was to place a metal piece down the wheel shaft to hold the washer in place and keep the wheel from moving too much from side to side. Finally, the tire was placed on the wheel, and the process was complete. (See Figure 7.2.) The IE gathered this information and wrote it down. But he or she had learned from past implementation efforts that input from the production associate was very valuable. The IE showed the information to the production associate and asked whether the information was correct. The production associate said that all the information was correct, but it was not complete. A key step was missing, one that the production associate knew about, but the IE had not noticed. This key step was the way that the end cap was put on. It had to be put on at a 45-degree angle, and then rotated to 90 degrees to ensure that the cap was firmly in place. The production associates learned this through trial and error. A few months earlier, the cell was having quality problems, with the end cap popping off. The problem was traced back to the production associate, who was putting the end cap straight on. It looked fine, but did not operate properly. The input from the production associate helped the IE developing the standardized work understand the importance of communication with the production associate as well as the key steps in the process. The IE now needed to time each step in the process. The same methodology was used as that which was used to get the work motions at the process. The IE timed each step in the process and, with input from the production associate, felt good about the standard steps and times to complete the process. Realizing that there can be no improvements without standards to improve on, the IE set the standard for this process, hoping it could quickly be improved. The IE now had to determine the best way to get the standard work on the production floor.

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The Best Method for Getting Standardized Work to the Production Floor RNA managers came to the conclusion that the best way to get the standardized work information to the floor was to develop standardized work charts. The IEs were then charged with developing a standardized work chart throughout the facility. It was important for the RNA facility to have a form that everyone could understand—in other words, if you understood one standardized work chart and you walked into any area within the facility, you could understand any of the standardized worksheets in that area. It doesn’t make much sense to have different standardized work charts scattered throughout the facility, because if it was important enough to standardized the individual production processes, it should be important to standardize the processes of monitoring and improving the processes throughout the facility. By doing this, anyone who wanted to audit an area would be able to go to the area, audit a process, and determine whether standardized work was being followed and whether there were any continuous improvement opportunities. Figure 7.3 shows an example of the standardized work chart template RNA managers developed. The IEs took this template and filled in the wheel assembly steps discussed in the preceding section, highlighting the key points and completing the illustration to give a visual representation of how to correctly assemble the end cap (see Figure 7.4).

Placement of Standardized Work Now that the RNA IEs had completed their first standardized work chart, they had to determine the placement of the chart. The conversations concerning this placement were lengthy because RNA had not used standardized work charts before. Some thought that they should be held in the IE offices, but that idea was quickly abandoned because everyone realized that the information on the standardized work charts was for the production associate and management, not for the IEs. The next idea for the placement of the standardized work chart was in a binder at the production area. A production area at the RNA facility has anywhere from four to eight production processes, so when the chart was needed, the operators and management would have to go and get the chart from the binder. This was wasteful time that could be better used to add value to the product or take steps to improve the process. Finally the management at RNA started to ask the question, “Who is the customer?” In this case, the customer is the production associate and production management. With this thought in mind, it was decided that the process standardized worksheets would be posted in a place at the process where they could easily be seen by the production associate and production management. In

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Figure 7.3 Standardized work template.

Information at the Process Level n 95

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5 20 5 15

Get wheel shaft and place it through the washers and wheel

Get end cap and place on shaft outside of wheel

Beget metal holder and place down shaft on other side of the wheel

Get tire and place on wheel

3

4

5

6

Mach Time

Element Time

Figure 7.4 RNA completed standardized work sheet.

Totals in seconds:

60

5

Get another washer and hold it on the other side of the wheel

2

Key Quality Process

10

Get wheel and washer and hold washer onto wheel

1

Manual Work

Work Elements

Task #

1/8/2008

Wheel Assembly

BA

Cell 11

(Process) Date

Area Work Static

Quality Takt Time

Q

Check

Jimmy Dale

Chart Developer Safety

H

Home Position

Symbol

Start at the bottom of the wheel shaft with the end cap. Then rotate the end cap upwards until you hear it snap into place.

Cell 3

Area

Key Step 4

Station of Station C

Process Name:

Std In-Proc Stock Number

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Information at the Process Level n 97

Figure 7.5 Placement of standardized work.

this way, the charts could be used to help manage the facility through audits and continuous improvement (see Figure 7.5).

Combining Standard Processes to Develop a Standard Area Now that the production area has valuable information at the process level, including the standard process and standard times to complete them, RNA wanted to take steps to combine those processes so that it could get the most out of this information. It had to determine how to do this. Many of the manufacturing areas in the production sections at RNA had been moved into production cells. For example, the wheel assembly process was in a manufacturing cell with four other production processes. RNA began to think about how it could put all of this information in one place so that it could effectively make staffing decisions based on customer demand information it was receiving from the production control department. The company decided to develop standardized work charts at the area or team level. These charts would show the expected output and walk patterns in the manufacturing cell. For example, Figures 7.6 through 7.10 shows that if this cell is run with one operator, the output can be expected to produce one back middle frame every five minutes. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if the cell were run with five people, the output would be expected to be one every minute. Armed with this information (which originated at the process level of standardized work), management could make staffing decisions based on customer demand and have a reasonable expectation of output and productivity (see Figure 7.11). RNA managers realized that they probably would never want to run with five associates in the cell, but they did have that option if customer demand dictated that they needed to, or if they needed to make an emergency shipment. RNA called this the “ability to sprint.”

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RNA Work Area Standardized Work Cell 11 Station B

Station G

Station F

Station D

Station A

1 Operator process time = 300 seconds 300 Seconds per piece or 12 pieces per hour

Figure 7.6 Area standardized work for one person.

RNA Work Area Standardized Work Cell 11 Station B

Station G

Station F

Station D

Station A

2 Operators process time = 150 seconds 150 Seconds per piece or 24 pieces per hour

Figure 7.7 Area standardized work for two people.

Figure 7.8 Area standardized work for three people.

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Figure 7.9 Area standardized work for four people.

How Often Should Standardized Work Be Revised? There is really no need to change the standardized work unless there is a way to make it better. Ideas for the improvement of standardized work can come from anywhere, but usually begin with production associates, IEs, or managers who audit the process on a regular basis. When the standardized work is set, it then becomes primarily the responsibility of the production associates to continually improve the standard work. The production associates run the processes everyday, so they have the best opportunity to see ways to improve them. Engineers and managers who audit on a regular basis (see Chapter 9) also have an opportunity improve the process when they are auditing because they are RNA Work Area Standardized Work Cell 11 Station B

Station G

Station F

Station D

Station A

5 Operators process time = 60 seconds 60 Seconds per piece or 60 pieces per hour

Figure 7.10 Area standardized work for five people.

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100 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively Production Area Staﬃng Chart

• 1 operator = 300 seconds (12 pcs/hour) • 2 operators = 150 seconds (24 pcs/hour) • 3 operators = 120 seconds (30 pcs/hour) • 4 operators = 90 seconds (40 pcs/hour) • 5 operators = 60 seconds (60 pcs/hour)

Figure 7.11 Area staffing chart.

there looking for ways to improve; however at RNA, as in most facilities, the ideas for improvement originate with production associates most of the time.

Standardized Work as a Foundation to Make Information Flow Now that RNA has standardized work at the process and area levels, managers have access to information that will certainly help them run the facility. They have documented standards on how to produce the product. They have the times required to perform the standard work at each process. By utilizing process standardized work charts, they were able to develop area standardized work charts so that the output of the area could be planned and manpower movements could be made to react to customer demand. This is the information link from Production Control to the process level. Production Control informs Production of the requirements, and now Production can make quick and efficient manpower decisions as to the most productive and timely way to meet those requirements.

Key Points NNStandardized work at the process level is the basis for process improvement. NNStandardized work charts should be standard throughout the facility. NNPlacement of the standardized work charts is important. NNCombining standardized work at the process level gives Production the information it needs to make productive and timely manpower decisions. NNManpower decisions are based on the demand from Production Control, thus effectively linking Production Control with Production.

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Chapter 8

Information at the Team Level The majority of employees at RNA wanted to excel at their jobs and meet expectations. However, in the past, it would have been possible for production associates to work for years without knowing whether they were meeting expectations. RNA managers knew that for production associates to efficiently and consistently meet expectations, they needed more than just standardized work—they needed to know the expectations. RNA decided to design a way to be sure that the expectations were correctly and easily presented to the production associates.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of providing production expectations to the production floor in an efficient manner. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What information do you think is important for production associates to know? How is information currently provided to the production associates? What about management—what information does it need?

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There are two flows of information at the team level. The first piece of information that is critical to developing a stable and efficient production system is the expectations. Providing expectations is first, because if there are none, expectations will never be reached. The second type of information flow deals with information going from the production area to management. Many times, when people talk about information flow, they see it as a one-way street, meaning that someone gives the expectations to the production associates, and then the flow of information is complete. If that is true, we are saying that we are not interested in any information that the production associates have concerning the process. Facilities implementing lean manufacturing normally come to the realization that the production associates hold a great deal of information that can be helpful to the improvement (as well as everyday running) of the process. The second flow of information, therefore, is information on how the area is running. What problems did the production associates encounter the last hour? What problems are the production associates currently having? Were expectations met last hour? Why were the expectations not met? How is the quality in the area? Is the area producing what it should be producing? 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: What percentage of your workforce comes to work every day and wants to do a good job (meet expectations)? Are clearly defined expectations provided to the production associates? Do you know whether you are meeting expectations?

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Information at the Team Level n 103

It is unreasonable to require production associates to meet expectations if they do not have clearly defined expectations. Therefore, production associates require expectations. RNA felt strongly that 98% of its workforce wanted to meet expectations, so managers set out to provide those expectations to the production associates. Everyone in a manufacturing facility should have clearly defined expectations as to what they are supposed to achieve. Without clear expectations, energy is wasted on tasks that are outside the true expectations. RNA managers knew they could not tackle the whole facility, both management and production associates, by giving everyone clear expectations immediately. Instead, they had to start somewhere, and because value is added on the production floor by the production associates, they determined that would be a good place to begin. Expectations are a vital piece of information flow that has really been lacking at RNA, as well as many other manufacturing facilities in the past. RNA decided to make this a priority because it has found that simply by posting expectations in various areas, production was impacted in a positive way. This goes to show that when people understand the expectations, they tend to strive to meet them. Production management also requires information on the team performance so that it can make decisions. The management team at RNA needs information on quality, uptime, safety, and whether an area is making what it needs to make when it needs to make it. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who is responsible for setting the expectations in your facility? Who should set the expectations for the facility? Are there different levels of expectations?

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104 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

The responsibility for setting expectations resides with the production control department within a lean manufacturing organization. Taking into account that the production control department must work closely with Production and the IEs to understand the capabilities of the production floor, the expectations on the production floor are based on the customer demand rate or takt time. Expectations are set by the production control department in the form of a production schedule. Therefore, the production supervisors make staffing decisions based on the area standardized work charts to make the schedule.

A Good Method for Getting the Expectations to the Floor: The PSB Exercise: What do you think is the best way to get information to the production floor in your facility? How do you monitor information?

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Information at the Team Level n 105

The most popular way RNA has found to get the expectations out to the production floor is through the utilization of a production status board (PSB). RNA has found that to be the most efficient tool on the production floor to increase and improve information flow. The PSB is a central place where expectations can be provided to the production associates.

Side One of the PSB The first side of PSB, called the production side, is set up to provide the current information flow to the team and management. Figure 8.1 shows the various parts of this side of the PSB. This side of the PSB achieves three significant flow points within information flow.

Expectations Per Hour The first bit of information the PSB provides to the production associate is in the form of expectations by the hour. This eliminates any guesswork by production associates as to production goals within their work day. Furthermore, it provides detailed expectations by the hour of what is expected out of the production area. This allows the operators to know whether they have met expectations for the hour. At RNA, this was a new concept, as operators in the past had not known what the expectations were and oftentimes left work at the end of the day not knowing whether the area had a good day or not. Taking the customer demand

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106 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Team:

Team Leader:

Time

Plan

Actual

Group Leader: Comments

Production Area Supervisor Manager

7:00–8:00 8:00–9:00

Actual output

9:15–10:00 10:00–11:00 11:30–12:00

Comments by production associates

Planned output

12:00–1:15 1:30–2:30 2:30–3:30 Total

Figure 8.1 Production status board template.

and the team standardized work charts described in Chapter 7, the expectations were placed on the PSB (see Figure 8.2).

Supervisor Data A second area on the PSB provides a way to flow information in the opposite direction—from production associate to supervisor. At first, the managers did not understand the significance of flowing information from the production associate to the supervisor, but after further investigation, they realized that the first people to notice a problem on the production floor would be the production associates. RNA had to develop a way for those production associates to easily and quickly convey those problems to their supervisors so that they could be fixed. The PSB

Team: 11A Time

Team Leader: Andrew Plan

7:00–8:00

Actual

Comments

Group Leader: Christopher Group Leader

Area Manager

60

8:00–9:00

60

9:15–10:00

45

10:00–11:00

60

11:30–12:00

30

12:00–1:15

75

1:30–2:30

60

2:30–3:30

60

Total

390

Figure 8.2 PSB plan included.

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Information at the Team Level n 107

Team: 11A Time

Team Leader: Andrew Plan

Group Leader: Christopher

Actual Comments

7:00–8:00

60

60

8:00–9:00

60

45

9:15–10:00

45

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Crimp Machine Down

1:30–2:30

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Crimp Machine Down

2:30–3:30

60

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Total

450

370

Group Area Leader Manager

Crimp Machine Down

Figure 8.3 PSB with comments.

was a good tool to make information flow from management to production associates as well as to provide a method to make information flow from the production associate to the supervisor. The comments section was added to the PSB (see Figure 8.3) so that the production associates could provide information on current or possible future problems. By utilizing this tool, it is evident that the crimp machine is causing substantial problems within the team. The problem, though now identified, still does not have an owner who has the responsibility of addressing the problem. There must be someone who periodically checks the PSB to see whether the production associates have anything that they need taken care of. The board can become obsolete if no one addresses the information given by the production associates. The production associates will likely not continue to utilize the board if they do not think their input is seen as valuable to the organization.

Management Time Frame This leads to the third point on the PSB: If used to its fullest extent, it decreases the management time frame of production supervisors. By management time frame, we mean the amount of time it takes to determine whether there is a problem so that action can be taken to fix the problem. The normal management time frame among production supervisors varies from one shift to one week. This means that at the end of the shift or week, the production supervisor counts the total product, and then counts the product with no quality problems and determines whether it has been a good shift or week. By utilizing PSBs, that time frame changes to about an hour—the PSB is a place where progress toward the daily goal is updated every hour and problems are posted by production associates every hour. This means that the supervisor can change over, fix the machine, or make other decisions that help the team meet expectations for the day. This is a significant improvement over a management time frame of one shift or one week.

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108 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Team: 11A

Team Leader: Andrew

Time

Plan

7:00–8:00

60

Group Leader: Matthews

Actual Comments 60

Group Leader

Area Manager

RM Crimp Machine Down

8:00–9:00

60

45

RM

9:15–10:00

45

45

RM

10:00–11:00

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60

RM

11:30–12:00

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12:00–1:15

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Crimp Machine Down

RM

1:30–2:30

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Crimp Machine Down

RM

2:30–3:30

60

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RM

Total

450

370

RM

AD

AD AD

Figure 8.4 Complete PSB.

However, in the past RNA production supervisors were busy and did not always make it to the manufacturing cell every hour. RNA managers thought it was so important that the supervisor visit the area every hour to check the progress (which amounted to checking the PSB) that they made it mandatory for the supervisor to initial the PSB every hour to indicate that he or she had visited it. They also made it mandatory to have the supervisor’s manager check the PSB twice a shift to ensure production was running, and that the supervisor was utilizing the production status board. (See Figure 8.4.)

Side Two of the PSB The production status board originates with the purpose of making information flow with the production side, but is further used to hold more information. Questions such as, “How is the safety in this area?” “How good is the quality in this area?” “Does this area meet its schedule?” “How is the uptime in the area?” These are all questions that managers ask. This is important information that in the past has been mishandled. It has either been buried in some report at RNA or just combined in the overall plant performance. Through their lean initiatives RNA has come to realize that if you do not or cannot see a problem, you cannot fix the problem. The managers at RNA want to see areas for improvement at the team level that make the most sense to their facility. At the RNA facility, the team or area level is a good place to gather information about safety, quality, scheduling, and uptime. With this information, they can see whether there are issues that need to be addressed at these levels. So the management at RNA developed the second side of the PSB, called the history side. This section has four charts that address the four big issues at the team or area level: safety, quality, making schedule, and uptime.

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Information at the Team Level n 109

Safety Chart Safety was the first chart because RNA had made big strides in safety at its facility. RNA’s lost work day rate had gone from 3.4 to 0.44 since beginning the lean journey. One injury is too many, so managers thought it necessary to put this document first on the PSB. And it was not enough that they wanted to track safety, they had to determine how to track safety. Instead of tracking lost work days, which would have hidden the injuries that did not lead to lost work time, any safety issue (injury or near-miss), no matter how minor was charted on the board. Taking this matter one step further, an A3 form had to be completed on the injury. These forms were kept in a binder under the history side of the PSB for one year.

Quality Chart Quality was the second chart of the history side of the PSB. Management’s first thought was to do PPM or parts per million. That sounded good, but did not really give them the information they wanted. The management was looking for something that was easier to evaluate with a quick look at the PSB. They chose to use FTQ or first time quality. Though this seems relatively straightforward, that is not necessarily the case. RNA went on to define FTQ as a product that goes through the area from beginning to end without a defect. This did not include reworked parts. So, if a part went to another area to be reworked or was reworked in the area, that part counted against the FTQ number.

Making Schedule (Compliance to Kanban) Chart The term making schedule caused some semantic problems in the RNA facility because there could only be one schedule per value stream, but there could be up to eight different teams or areas in a value stream. Therefore, RNA changed the terminology to compliance to kanban. They did this because all the scheduling information, whether it be a schedule from Production Control or a kanban from a downstream process, would be moved in the form of a kanban card. As far as Production was concerned, this was one of the most important measures. In the past, RNA had measured production on how many products it had produced, not on whether it had produced the right products. In a lean system, it is not how many products you produce, it is whether you are producing the right quantity in the right mix of part numbers. This chart will provide that information. The production side of the PSB tells only the quantity that is expected and produced; it does not deal with the mix. The reason for this that RNA wanted the production associates to focus on production not a schedule. RNA felt it was the production control department’s responsibility to get the kanban to production

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110 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

and that it was Production’s responsibility to be flexible enough to make what the kanban indicated. Compliance to kanban is simply whether an area made what it was supposed to make, when it was supposed to make it. For example, in its simplest form: Area 11 received 10 kanbans at the end of shift yesterday that needed to be produced for today. Did it make all 10? If it did, the area was 100% compliant to kanban. If it made only eight, then they were 80% compliant to kanban and so on. This lets everyone know whether an area is making what it needs to make when it needs to make it.

Uptime Tracking RNA defined uptime as simply, “the machines were available to run.” This means that the machine is capable of running, but does not include lost time, material shortages, returning late from break. All of that information will be collected on the production side of PSB. This chart’s purpose is to identify the current history of the uptime in the area. Figure 8.5 shows the history side of the PSB. There was some disagreement as to how long the history sheets should be covered and updated. Should the charts be updated daily, weekly, or monthly? RNA decided that as they were just implementing the PSBs, they wanted to make sure that they were being used so that they could see the benefits and work out any problems that they found. Therefore, they decided to update each chart daily and leave them up for one month. At the end of each month, the information on the charts was copied into pages in the binder below the history side of the PSB.

January Safety 1

5

10

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5

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25

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1

5

10

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1

5

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Quality

Compliance to Kanban

Uptime

Figure 8.5 History side of PSB.

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Information at the Team Level n 111

This binder also holds all the A3 forms completed to address the various problems that show up on the history side of the PSB. Each problem or abnormality that shows on any chart on the history side of the PSB should have a completed A3 form associated with it in the binder.

The Continuous Improvement Side of the PSB The third and final side of the PSB is the continuous improvement (CI) side of the PSB. This side of the board holds the various audits (see Chapter 9) and improvement ideas that were performed or ongoing in the area. Note: Audits are not performed to catch someone doing something wrong. They serve two purposes in the production area. The first is to see whether what has been implemented is being followed and working. The second is to identify areas of improvement. The CI side of the PSB is set up to post these audits and the action plans that either originate from these audits or that come from other places such as the production associate. The top of the board holds three audits. The first is a standardized work audit, the second is a 6S audit, and the third is the material delivery system audit. Each of these audits is covered in detail in Chapter 9. Below the audits, which are posted for everyone to see, there is a space for the detailed implementation plan of further lean systems or projects focused on continuous improvements (see Figure 8.6). RNA knew that it wanted areas to be striving for perfection, and this section gave managers a way to make sure each area was taking steps to continually improve.

What Are the Physical Dimensions of the PSB? When thinking about the physical dimensions of the PSB, it is important to remember who the customers are. The first customers are the production associates, who need to be able to see the expectations and be able to provide information back to management quickly and easily. The second customer is management, which also has to be able to see and understand the information quickly and easily. Understanding the customer needs, RNA ruled out the use of standard 8½ × 11 pieces of paper because they were too small to see, change, and quickly understand. RNA wanted the PSB to be big enough for everyone to see in the area, but not so big that it would not fit in the area. The next item they had to decide on was what the board was made of—would it be paper or white board? RNA decided to use the flip charts to get started, but they knew that was not what they wanted to do in the future. Paper would be expensive and wasteful over time. Ultimately, RNA decided to use dry-erase white boards. These boards were the same dimensions as the flip charts, but could be

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PP7374_C008.indd 112

Date

Process

Comments and Corrective Actions

Figure 8.6 Continuous improvement side of PSB.

**Auditors, please sign and date on back

Auditing Team

(Place a X where there is a problem)

Evidence that process is being audited regularly?

Are parts presentation devices used correctly? Are production status boards utilized? Are targets listed? Are targets up to date?

Work Station Is the standardized work chart posted? Is the standardized work up to date? Is standardized work being followed? Are pull signals being handled properly? (Associate pulls signal at right time) Are parts presentation devices organized?

Standardized Work Audit Form

Standardized Work Audit

Yes

No

Area Score

Ongoing Improvement Projects

Safety Does the area appear to be free of obvious safety hazards? Are safety meetings being conducted on a regular basis? Is there evidence that open safety issues are being addressed?

Sustain Are past audits posted in the area? Is there evidence that the audits are being used to improve?

Standardize Is the area following the facility standards?

Shine Is the area clean? Are the machines in the area clean? Is the floor swept?

Straighten Does every item in the area have a place? Is every place for an item identified? Are visual controls utilized to identify each place (tape, paint, etc.)? Is the tape on the floor in good shape?

Date: Area: Auditors: Sort Does everything in the area, belong in the area? Is the red tag area well identified? Is there evidence that the red tag area is being utilized? Score for “S”

*If no is checked on any item, the area automatically receives a 1 for that “S” **For each No, a corrective action needs to be developed and completed ***Scores are 1-5 for each “S”, area score is the total of the 6 “S” scores***

Continuous Improvement 6S Audit

Route Is copy of route lay-out on tugger? Is there an issues log on tugger? Is route lay-out document up to date and numbered to know latest data in use? Are all route stops properly identified? Are all material drop points properly identified? Are pull signals, returnables and dunnage in proper place available for pick-up? Are route aisles being kept clean to allow quick, safe transport of material? Does operator (tugger) have standardized work instructions? Are they being followed? Is all material in proper presentation device? (no material on floor, etc.) Is min/max level clearly identified on presentation device and being followed? Are tugger operator’s break and lunch times coordinated with depts. they service? Are latest route time/manpower utilization analysis available for review?

Drop box for pull cards being used? Delivery status board being utilized?

Is route lay-out posted? Are route times posted? Evidence they are being followed? Organized and clean? Parts in correct place? Evidence of FIFO?

Supermarket Area

Material Audit

Yes

No

Corrective Action

112 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

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Information at the Team Level n 113

Figure 8.7 Production status board.

reused and changed easily. The final production status board was configured like Figure 8.7, with each of the three sides discussed in the preceding sections.

Key Points NNIdentify expectations for all employees. NNDevelop a system so the supervisor checks the PSB every hour. NNThe PSB is the central tool for information flow at the team (area) level. NNUse all three sides of the PSB to manage and improve the area. NNHave a separate PSB for each area or team in the value stream.

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Chapter 9

Auditing Auditing may be one of the least understood concepts in a lean implementation. There seems to be two main misconceptions. The first is that audits are timeconsuming and difficult to complete. The second is that they are a “gotcha” tool, meaning that they are in place to catch someone doing something wrong. Neither of these is correct. Audits have two purposes. The first is to make sure that processes and systems that have been implemented are working. The second purpose is to provide an information flow vessel for continuous improvement ideas, always looking for the next level of improvement. This chapter discusses the auditing process.

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of providing management with information on how the implementation is going. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What information do you have in your facility that tells you how things are running? What information do you have in your facility that lets everyone know that work standards are being followed?

115

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116 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

A facility has to have information on whether work standards are being followed. If a facility does not know whether the standards are being followed, what good are the standards? 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: Does anyone in your facility know that work standards are being followed? Who needs to know that work standards are being followed?

The answer to this question is “management.” Management needs to know whether work standards in the facility are being followed. If they know that

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Auditing n 117

work standards are being followed, they can rest assured that their omission is not causing variability in the production process that can lead to quality problems. Equally, if they know that work standards are not being followed, they can take action to either change the standards or provide support in helping the associates understand that work standards need to be followed. This information also lets management know whether what they have implemented is working. If something is not working the way it was intended, management needs to make a change. This information will also lead to improvement opportunities throughout the process. Management, armed with this information, will be better equipped to effectively manage the facility. It can make informed decisions based on real information rather than what it thinks is happening with work standards. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who has information in your facility on whether work standards are being followed? Where is this information kept? Can anyone see it anytime they want?

Information about whether work standards are being followed does not currently exist in a facility that is not consistently conducting audits. The only way to get that information is to go to the floor and get the information through audits. The audits can then be posted for everyone to see on the PSB.

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118 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Developing an Audit RNA knew that it needed to develop audits that would be successful. However, before developing an audit, RNA had to decide what they were going to audit. Many organizations going down the lean path benefit from using three different audits when beginning their auditing process: a workplace organization (6S) audit; a standardized work audit; and a material route and market audit. Before you can audit, you have to have something to audit. For example, if an organization does not have standardized work, it cannot be audited. If a facility does not have a method of workplace organization, it cannot be audited. Finally, if there is no material route, there cannot be a material route audit. The point is that when something is implemented, it must then be audited to ensure that the implementation is continuing to work. A bad process should not be audited. RNA currently has all these various attributes of lean production implemented to some degree, so it can begin to develop its audits. The first audit that is normally developed is the workplace organization audit because it is not very intrusive. Auditing workplace organization in essence is just saying, “Is the work area clean and organized following the 6S method?” This has proven to be a good audit to begin to get the associates and supervisors involved in the auditing process. It helps get people used to the thought of seeing managers auditing process. RNA utilizes a strategic plan to train its workforce (Harris and Harris, 2007). Managers have added a class on auditing so that hourly associates understand the two purposes of the audit, know who is auditing, and understand where they can find the audits. This is an important point, because it is not a good idea to have management on the floor auditing without letting the workforce know what is going on. This often leads to anxiety, frustration, and even anger.

6S Audit When RNA began to develop the audit, it had to determine what it wanted to be audited. Managers were sure that, at the very least, they wanted to audit each of the S’s in the 6S process. They also considered how long the audit would be. They wanted to make the audit quick and efficient. RNA made it a point when developing audits that the audit itself should take 10 minutes or less. They continued to develop the workplace organization audit with this in mind. Finally, they wanted the audit to have a score, so that an area could quickly know how it had done. Figure 9.1 shows the audit form RNA developed for workplace organization.

Standardized Work Audit The next audit RNA wanted to develop was the standardized work audit. This audit was a little more intrusive because managers were watching an operator perform a job. They began with a rule at the top of the audit that stated that the auditor had to introduce him- or herself and explain why the auditor was there. It was not a big

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Auditing n 119 Date: Area: Auditors:

*If no is checked on any item, the area automatically recieves a 1 for that “S” **For each No, a corrective action needs to be developed and completed ***Scores are 1-5 for each “S”, Area Score is the total of the 6 “S” scores***

Sort Does everything in the area, belong in the area? Is the red tag area well identified? Is there evidence that the red tag area is being utilized?

Yes

No

Score for “S”

Straighten Does every item in the area have a place? Is every place for an item identified? Are visual controls utilized to identify each place (tape, paint, etc.)? Is the tape on the floor in good shape? Shine Is the area clean? Are the machines in the area clean? Is the floor swept? Standardize Is the area following the facility standards? Sustain Are past audits posted in the area? Is there evidence that the audits are being used to improve? Safety Does the area appear to be free of obvious safety hazards? Are safety meetings being conducted on a regular basis? Is there evidence that open safety issues are being addressed? Area Score

Figure 9.1 Workplace organization audit form.

item, but it was important that the associates on the production floor did not feel as though they were being ambushed. A simple sentence was all that was needed, like, “Hello, my name is Franklin Hunt and I am here to audit this process.” RNA managers wanted to be sure that standardized work was being followed, and they also wanted to know whether there were any improvement ideas. They also considered how long they wanted the audit to take. The goal was 10 minutes. Finally, there was no score needed on this audit, because either the standardized work was being followed or it was not. If it was not, corrective actions (in the form of an A3) detailing why the standard was not being followed and the plan to rectify the situation had to be developed. It could be that the standard method was improved. That is fine, but the new method would need to become the new standard. Figure 9.2 shows the standardized work audit form developed by RNA.

Timed Delivery Route and Market Audit The final audit RNA wanted to start with was the material delivery route and market audit. The audit for the material delivery route itself was different from the other audits because it could not happen in only 10 minutes. The route itself runs

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120 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively

Auditors be sure to introduce yourselves and inform production associates that you are auditing their process. RNA Standardized Work Audit Form Process Date Work Station Is the standardized work chart posted? Is the standardized work up-to-date? Is standardized work being followed? Are pull signals being handled properly? (Associate pulls signal at right time) Are parts presentation devices organized? Are parts presentation devices used correctly? Are production status boards utilized? Are targets listed? Are targets up to date? Evidence that process is being audited regulary? (Place a X where there is a problem) Auditing Team

Comments and Corrective Actions

Industrial Engineer

Supervisor

Production Associate

**Auditors, please sign and date on back

Figure 9.2 Standardized work audit form.

every hour and takes about 57 minutes. Therefore, the audit has to take at least that long. However, the rest of the audit was the same as the other two. Figure 9.3 is the audit form that RNA developed for the timed material delivery route.

Having the Audit Form Is Not Enough RNA knew that just having an audit form was not enough to make information flow. It needed a comprehensive system for auditing processes. It decided to develop a system for each audit. For each audit, RNA had to determine three items: who was going to do the auditing; when the audit was going to be completed; and how often the audit was going to be completed. The following three methods were developed for each of RNA’s audits.

Conducting the 6S Audit For the 6S audit, RNA decided that it should be a team of the supervisor, a production associate, and an industrial engineer (IE), completing the audit once per week, at the same time every week. The reason for the composition of this group of auditors was fairly simple: (1) the production supervisor was included because he or she is responsible for the organization of the area and is held accountable if the area is not up to facility standards in the area of workplace organization; (2) the production associate was included as an auditor because RNA believed

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Auditing n 121

Supermarket Area Is route layout posted? Are route times posted? Evidence they are being followed? Organized and clean? Parts in correct place? Evidence of FIFO? Drop box for pull cards being used? Delivery status board being utilized

Yes

No

Corrective Action

Route Is copy of route layout on tugger? Is there an issues log on tugger? Is route layout document up to date and numbered to know latest data in use? Are all route stops properly identified? Are all material drop points properly identified? Are pull signals, returnables, and dunnage in proper place available for pick-up? Are route aisles being kept clean to allow quick, safe transport of material? Does operator (tugger) have standardized work instructions? Are they being followed? Is all material in proper presentation device (no material on floor, etc.)? Is min/max level clearly identified on presentation device and being followed? Are tugger operator’s break and lunch times coordinated with depts they service? Are latest route time/manpower utilization analysis available for review?

Figure 9.3 Material delivery audit form.

that it was important to get the hourly associates involved and used to the auditing process. Another reason for having the hourly associate in this auditing process was because he or she has valuable input and ideas on how to make the area better. (3) The IE was included because, in the RNA facility, IEs created and were responsible for standards for workplace organization. They were also in a good position to pass best practices from one area to another. It was also the responsibility of the IE to be a gauge for the facility, bringing consistency to the audits. For example, two identical areas should receive the same score. However, with an hourly associate and the production supervisor doing the audits, there could be some bias in the results. It was the responsibility of the IE to provide consistency. RNA managers felt good about their auditing team for workplace organization and decided they would meet every Thursday morning at 9:00 am to audit cell 11. They would spend 10 minutes auditing the area. They would then all sign and date the audit form. Next, they would take the audit form to the PSB to post it in place of the previous week’s audit. At this point they would check to see whether there were any corrective actions from the previous week that had not been taken

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care of. If there were, the industrial engineers turned out to be exceptional support resources to help get these corrective actions complete.

A System to Audit Standardized Work The next auditing process that RNA put together was on how to effectively audit the standardized work in a manufacturing area. This process, though designed to get the same result, was set up quite a bit differently. RNA recognized the importance of standardized work, so it made it a point to develop cascading audits of the standardized work to consistently look for improvement opportunities in the process. The first person to audit is the team leader. He or she does a visual audit of every process every shift. The second person to audit is the production supervisor, who audits one process station per day along with the team leader. This audit is completed and posted on the PSB. Once per week, the area manager (the production supervisor’s boss) comes to the area and audits one process station, along with the production supervisor Cascading Audits and team leader. This audit takes the Team Leader place of the daily audit of the supervisor Supervisor and is placed on the PSB. Finally, once Area Manager Plant Manager per month, the plant manager, area manager, production supervisor, and team leader go to the floor and audit Figure 9.4 Cascading audit. one process station. (See Figure 9.4.) The purpose of this type of cascading audit is specifically to foster information flow. It is called cascading because of the different levels and times that the processes are audited. Each level of management should have a feel for standardized work on the production floor. Managers are out on the floor watching the process and comparing it with the standardized work, which provides a great opportunity for information flow. If there is a problem that needs to be resolved, one would hope that they could get the problem resolved with the various levels of management in the facility (all the way to the top). This is not as easy as it sounds to accomplish, however. It takes a commitment by management to put time aside to audit the processes. This means that lean leaders have to standardize their day. Granted, their day cannot be standardized like a process, but it can be standardized to some extent. The RNA plant manager, like many organizations implementing lean systems, followed a standard day. To do this, the facility had to make it a rule in the facility that there would be no meetings from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. So, the standard day looked like the following: 6:00–7:00: Check and return e-mail messages. 7:00–8:00: Go to the production floor for sacred time. 8:00–9:00: Hold glass wall talk (see Chapter 10). 9:00–10:00: Conduct audits. 10:00am–end of day: Attend meetings and do activities as scheduled.

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As you can see, the only realistic portion of the day that can be standardized is often the beginning few hours. Though this does not look like standardized work based on production standards, it actually is very good standardized work for upper level managers in a production environment. It allows some quiet time in the early morning to get caught up from the previous day’s messages, and it provides specific time for auditing. Finally, it provides for “sacred time.” Sacred time is a concept that too few managers use. It is when a manager is out on the floor just watching processes run and looking for ways to make them run better. There is nothing miraculous here, but how much time do plant managers and other upper level managers spend out on the production floor watching how things operate? Plant managers are normally very surprised at how beneficial they find their sacred time.

Auditing the Material Delivery Route The final audit was the material delivery route and market audit. RNA thought about the best way to audit the route and determined that the best way would be to have the supervisor complete the material delivery route audit on the entire route, including the pull signals at each production area and the purchased parts market once per week. They also decided to have the top Production Control person on site, along with the plant manager, to audit this route once per month. The reason for having these two positions audit the route this often was the importance of the route. The route was vital to everything the plant produces. The material route is the lifeblood of a lean facility. It carries the vital material and information that a lean facility needs to continually be productive. It needs to leave the purchased parts market on time and cannot have any disruptions during the route. The route sets the pace for the facility, taking orders to the floor, removing product and kanban cards from WIP markets, delivering material on a just-in-time basis. Remember: the route must be healthy and a focus of management in a lean facility. Having said this, it is important that the materials route is audited by top management at least once per month to make sure the route is still running efficiently and without any problems.

Posting the Audits Audits are not secrets. They are tools for information. Therefore, they should be posted for everyone to see. There is really no conceivable reason not to post an audit. This is why there is a designated place on the PSB for the audits. Posting the audits let everyone know that management cares about the area and is taking steps to improve the area. We have seen many lean systems fail because of hope manufacturing. Hope manufacturing is when a group of people get together and implement a good robust lean system in an area. (Most of the time this happens in some type of kaizen event.) After the implementation,

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everyone goes back to their normal jobs. If they do not go out to the floor and look to see whether the lean system is still running properly, they can “hope” that it is. It seems that the reason so many people do not go to the production floor to check and see whether processes are running properly is that they are too busy in their current jobs or they are afraid they will have to deal with the area if the system is not running properly. This type of implementation causes a lot of harm in a facility using lean systems. The associates and supervisors get very frustrated. Think about it. A group of people who have never been to your area come in and tell you how to run it better, and then they leave, offering no support or explanation. There is no ownership of this process by anyone. Production does not need to hope that everything is running properly; it needs to know for sure and that the facility is operating properly. Auditing is a way to make sure this happens. We have found that a good way to keep good implementation moving forward is through the use of the previously described auditing methodology. We are not saying that these three audits are all you need; we are just trying to provide a good starting point. We actually hope that you will have many more audits as your implementation progresses. After you learn how to effectively conduct, complete, and utilize audits to make information flow, your company, like RNA, will likely be able to use them to make information flow much better in your facility.

Key Points NNDevelop audit forms specifically for what is being audited. NNDevelop audits with the people who are going to be audited in mind. NNKeep time as a legitimate concern when conducting and developing audits. NNDevelop a system to completing the audits. NNCascading audits are good for information flow. NNPost the audits so that everyone can see them.

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Chapter 10

The Glass Wall As companies throughout the world have implemented lean systems successfully and unsuccessfully, the reason for both outcomes has become clear. A lean implementation is successful for the same reason that a lean implementation fails. That reason: leadership. This book has specifically focused on developing good information flow and getting it to the right people at the right times. This chapter answers this question, “How can managerial leadership effectively and consistently get and use information on current production and lean implementation initiatives?”

Information Overview What information is available, who needs it, and who holds and is responsible for it? This section answers those questions in the context of the glass wall, which is a tool for managing a facility. 1. What Is the Information? Exercise: What information is needed in order to know how a facility is doing? How is the information divided? How do you know whether it is correct?

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We have started each chapter this way because it is a necessity to know what the information is before you can make the information flow. In this case, it is important to identify what information lets people know how the facility is doing as a whole. A good method that we have seen is to evaluate each value stream. A facility is divided into the various value streams it has. The lean implementation is also focused on those value streams. Lean initiatives are normally started at the value stream level. In lean facilities, there is often a designated value stream manager for each value stream. This person is charged with making decisions based on what is best for the value stream. For these reasons, it seems that the best way to evaluate the current health of the facility as well as the state of lean implementation in the facility is by value stream. Therefore, the necessary information is the information on safety, quality, cost, delivery, uptime, lead time, inventory reduction, floor space, and lean implementation by value stream. 2. Who Needs the Information? Exercise: Who needs information on safety, quality, cost, delivery, uptime, lead time, inventory reduction, floor space, and lean implementation? Do they have time to go look for the information?

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Of course the immediate answer to this question is obvious: management. However, do they have time to hunt this information down? The answer is no. So in this case, it is not enough to know who needs the information; we need to understand how they need the information. Management needs this information in a way it can use it to manage a facility. It needs to be in one place, up-to-date, with someone there to explain any problems and concerns that arise. That person also needs to be able to explain the current implementation plans for lean initiatives. 3. Who Holds and Is Responsible for the Information? Exercise: Who has the information on the health of your value streams? Where is it stored? How accurate is the information?

The seeds for this information have already been planted in the form of the PSBs. However, the PSB tells only what is happening in that one area, not the entire value stream. But by taking the information off the various PSBs in the

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value stream, the health of the entire value stream can be calculated in terms of safety, quality, uptime, and compliance to pull, as well as productivity. The lean implementation is another matter because it often takes place on the value stream level going across multiple processes. So there needs to be a person responsible for monitoring all the information in the value stream. That person is the value stream manager.

Understanding the Glass Wall The glass wall may be one of the most beneficial tools that we have found to assist facilities in implementing lean production. It does this by effectively making information flow at the value stream level. The glass wall is at a central point in the facility that holds information, both on the current status of lean implementation and the current status of the facility in general. The following paragraphs outline how RNA used the glass wall as an effective tool in its implementation of lean production. RNA has produced a great deal of information throughout its implementation of lean production. The company has current-state value stream maps, future-state maps, and implementation plans, as well as having information on production. Managers now know how each area is doing as it pertains to safety, compliance to pull, quality, uptime, and productivity. However, this information has remained at the micro level, or at a level where the information is difficult to find and evaluate. RNA decided to develop a glass wall process (emphasis on “process”). A glass wall process is different from just having a glass wall. A glass wall is a place where anyone in the facility can see all the metrics and implementation plans of a value stream. It was termed glass wall because it was put up for everyone to see. A glass wall process, on the other hand, means that you have a glass wall plus a process to utilize it to assist in the implementation and running of a facility.

Step 1: Choose a Place The first step in developing a glass wall process is to choose a place for the glass wall. This place needs to be visible to all in the facility and have enough room to allow 10 to 25 people to stand comfortably in the area. RNA managers chose a central place in the center of the facility to place the glass wall. It has enough room for people to be in the area as well as being centrally located so that people in the facility can easily see it. Figure 10.1 is an illustration of where RNA put its glass wall.

Step 2: Establish a Look The next step in developing the glass wall is to decide what the wall will look like. The glass wall is set up to facilitate the flow of information on lean

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Figure 10.1 Diagram showing glass wall placement.

implementation and normal production. The glass wall is also separated by value stream. For example, the RNA facility has four value streams, so its glass wall needs to have four separate sections, one for each of its value streams. Each section needs to look the same. (See Figure 10.2.)

Step 3: What Information Is Needed The third step in developing the glass wall is determining what information each value stream will need to have in its section of the glass wall. RNA managers developed these standards by following what they wanted to use the glass wall to accomplish. RNA believed that it was very important to continually push the implementation of lean production, so the first item to be posted on the glass wall was the current-state value stream map. This was so that everyone could see that it had completed the map and understood its current state. RNA also knew that it wanted to see the future-state map for each value stream. In all reality, the purpose for drawing a current-state map is to draw a future-state map. The future-state map is the plan for change. It is imperative that if the glass wall is to truly be a tool to track lean implementation, the future state is prevalent in the process. After coming to this conclusion, RNA developed the first section of a value stream’s portion of the glass wall (see Figure 10.3).

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Figure 10.2 Glass wall template.

Figure 10.3 Glass wall showing value stream maps.

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Current to Future State A value stream is not lean just because it has current-state and future-state maps. As a matter of fact, this is exactly where many facilities fail. They fail to ever get from the current state to the future state. The glass wall needs to be a place where the plan to get from the current state to the future state is outlined. Take, for example, the common practice of putting Kaizen bursts on a current state map. A Kaizen burst is placed on a value stream map to indicate an action that needs to be taken to get to the future state. A look at the current state map of a value stream at RNA (see Figure 10.4) shows three different Kaizen bursts. Each one of these Kaizen bursts is necessary to reach the future state. If they were not, they should not be on the value stream map as an important task. Understanding that these burst are very important leads to the next addition on the glass wall. That addition is a clear description of each Kaizen burst. In this section of the glass wall, each of the Kaizen bursts is listed, and a description is given as to the Kaizen burst. (See Figure 10.5.) However, just understanding what the Kaizen bursts are does not enable management to better assist and track the implementation. There should be many questions for each of the Kaizen bursts. Questions such as, “Who is responsible for each kaizen bursts?” “Is the implementation on schedule?” “What is the projected completion date?” “Are there any problems?” Each of these questions deserves an answer. However, the answer should already be there before the questions are asked. RNA managers felt strongly

Figure 10.4 Diagram showing Kaizen Bursts for improvement.

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Figure 10.5 Glass wall showing Kaizen Burst explanation.

Figure 10.6 Glass wall with top portion complete.

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about this, so they developed the next part of the glass wall to address theses answers. The third part of the glass wall is a detailed plan, along with the status of the implementation of each Kaizen burst. This includes the owner of the implementation, the implementation schedule, progress to that schedule, and the completion date. Also, any problems that occur during the implementation that need to be addressed should be included in this area. RNA had now completed the top part of this section. This section was set up to cover the implementation of lean production in the value stream (see Figure 10.6).

Measuring Production Status of the Value Stream The bottom part of the section is set up to measure the current production status of the value stream. Implementing lean production would be much easier if the entire business could shut down for a year to implement it, but that is not possible. The business has to continually run, and implementation of lean production has to happen at the same time. For this reason, the glass wall also has to be a place to monitor current production. This provides management one-stop shopping for information on both the lean implementation and current production.

Safety The first part of the production side of the board was safety. Even if a facility is not implementing lean production, safety is important to everyone. RNA had made great strides in the area of safety through its lean implementation, now measuring safety by issue (injury or near miss). While in the past the big number was lost work days, now it is any injury, no matter how small. For every injury in the plant, an investigation (in the form of an A3) had to be completed so that the injury would not happen again. This portion of the glass wall was the place to keep all the injuries and A3s within the value stream.

Quality The second metric was quality. Quality is a necessity in any system. It does not matter whether it is manufacturing or a business process, quality is key. RNA decided that it was going to make quality the second section in this area. It measures quality in terms of scrap, first-time quality, and parts per million. NNScrap is considered any part that is not acceptable to the customer and is calculated in dollars. NNFirst-time quality is calculated as a percentage of products that go through the entire production process without a quality problem the first time. Parts that are reworked are counted against first-time quality. NNParts per million indicates how many defective parts are produced out of every million.

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Plant Controllable Cost Cost was the next measurable that RNA wanted to capture on a real-time basis. RNA managers wanted to know the cost of the product they were shipping. They also wanted to see trends throughout the implementation process. RNA calculated cost by taking the number of pieces shipped and dividing it by the total number of man hours, both direct and indirect. This gave it the cost to produce the product in the given value stream with the exception of material. Material and overhead stayed relatively the same at the RNA facility, so it was not included in this calculation.

Delivery The next important measurable that RNA wanted to capture on the glass wall was delivery. One of the most important things a facility can do to secure a good future is to keep the customer happy. To keep a customer happy, on-time delivery is a must. RNA made big strides on its on-time delivery and wanted the trend to continue. RNA calculated delivery a little bit differently from most facilities; it determined a value stream’s compliance to pull. In essence, if a value stream was producing what it needed when it needed it, delivery would be no problem. As long as Production Control was doing a good job of scheduling the value stream, all the value stream could do was produce what it was asked to produce when it was asked to produce it. RNA wanted to capture this at the glass wall.

Uptime Uptime was the next measurable. RNA had done a lot to increase information flow and improve uptime in the facility, and managers wanted to know whether uptime was indeed getting better. RNA realized that each percentage of uptime represented a large dollar figure. RNA calculated that if it could improve uptime 1%, that would translate to more than half a million dollars in savings. Uptime at the RNA facility was calculated by the percentage of time the machines in the value stream were available to run.

Inventory The next measurable was a big deal at RNA, as it is in most manufacturing facilities: inventory. RNA measured inventory by inventory turns by value stream. This number included both purchased parts and WIP parts. Inventory, more specifically material, made up over 70% of RNA’s cost of goods sold. RNA knew that it needed to get control of this significant cost and continually attempt to reduce inventory levels throughout its value streams, so managers saw it as very important to track it on the glass wall.

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Floor Space The final measurable that RNA included on the glass wall was floor space. RNA had a plan to grow its business by 20% over the next five years. To do this, managers knew that they were going to need floor space. One of their big initiatives as a result of lean implementation was to reduce the floor space value streams used to produce product. RNA had already done a good job reducing the required floor space, but managers wanted to continue to track it.

Pulling It All Together An important point to all these metrics that RNA used is to understand how they are set up. Each of the forms had the current level, the target level, and the actual progress toward the target. This is important because it is very difficult to reach goals if they are not in place. By having a target in each area, the glass wall can be used to track multiple targets and initiatives at one time. RNA management can now stand at the glass wall and have a good idea of how the lean implementation is going and how the facility is currently doing. Figure 10.7 shows how a completed portion of the glass wall looks.

Figure 10.7 Complete glass wall section.

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Figure 10.8 Complete glass wall at RNA.

The Glass Wall Is Not Enough The presence of a glass wall does not mean it is going to make anything better. There has to be a detailed and structured plan of how to utilize the glass wall to effectively manage the facility. RNA developed what they called the glass wall talk. The glass wall talk was led by the head manufacturing person on site. At the RNA facility, that person was the plant manager. The plant manager and his management staff met at the glass wall at 8:00 a.m. every day. The plant manager’s staff at RNA was composed of the head of Production Control, head IE, the top quality person on site, the safety manager, and head of Production. Along with the plant manager’s staff, all the supervisors in the facility met at the glass wall. This meeting took the place of RNA’s normal production meeting. At this meeting, the supervisors went over the previous day’s production numbers, what was resolved, and concerns about the upcoming day. The second part of this meeting was an update on the lean implementation of the facility. They looked at various dates of completion and status. This allowed management to stay up-to-date on the implementation in the facility. The meeting also provided an arena to discuss the implementation and provide support in the areas that were needed. The morning glass wall meeting is an excellent way for any company to make information flow on the current status of the facility and the implementation of lean manufacturing principles.

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The RNA meeting lasted approximately 20 minutes. After the meeting was over, the plant manager and his staff went to one production area (although no one in the facility knew which one they were going to). They went to the area and stood at the production status board to make sure it was being utilized. They also made sure that everything on the board was up-to-date, specifically the safety, quality, uptime, and compliance to pull. Next, they went to the production or schedule board (what it is called depends on the area) and made sure that board was being used properly. Finally, the plant manager and his staff audited workplace organization in the area along with the production supervisor in the area. They then took their score for the area and compared it to the posted audit. If they were the same, there was no problem. If there was a discrepancy or something that needed to be addressed, the communication could be immediate. This portion of the day is a vital part of the lean implementation for facilities going through the lean process. The reason is that it gets upper management out on the production floor and allows the workforce to see management. By getting to the production floor on a regular basis, management sends the right message to the workforce. We have found that the shop floor is a direct reflection on the leadership of a facility. In the facilities in which we help people formulate their procedures, we have found that where management takes the extra effort to spend at least a portion of its day on the production floor, the business tends to be more successful in its lean implementation, as well as having a better informed workforce. All together, the morning glass wall meeting is vital to a facility implementing lean production. It is the one event that ties all the information flow together in a facility. In 20 minutes at the morning glass wall meeting, management can know how the plant ran the previous day as well as how they are doing in terms of safety, quality, uptime, and delivery. The managers can also make decisions as they relate to allocating resources throughout the plant. They can also know how the lean implementation is progressing. The glass wall lets other supervisors and support staff know how other areas of the facility are running. Furthermore, the facility management can get out to the production floor and make sure areas are running as they were intended. This portion of the morning takes about 45 minutes. So, in less than one hour a day, information can effectively and efficiently flow through a lean manufacturing facility.

Discipline Is the Key Of course, this all sounds good. It is not even that complicated after you understand how to set up a facility to make information flow. The problem that many facilities face is discipline. It takes real discipline to make information flow and the glass wall process work. Many organizations can get the glass wall process up and running, but making it work for them in the long term can be difficult.

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It all starts at the top. If the head manufacturing person on site is dedicated to making this process work, it works. If he or she does not use the glass wall as a way to manage the facility, it fails. This is not something that can be delegated to someone else. It takes the top person on site to facilitate, lead, and utilize the glass wall on a consistent basis for the glass wall to yield the intended results. Remember: the number one reason that a lean implementation succeeds, and the number one reason that a lean implementation fails, is leadership—and that is you.

Key Points NNMake your glass wall measure what you want to measure. NNSet your glass wall up by value stream. NNA glass wall without a consistent system to use it is will not yield intended results. NNA glass wall with a consistent efficient system (such as a morning glass wall meeting) is an invaluable tool to making information flow on a production floor. NNIt takes discipline to make the glass wall work for the long term, but the benefits will likely far outweigh the negatives.

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References Harris, R., et. al. (2003). Making Materials Flow. Cambridge, MA: Lean Enterprise Institute. Harris, C. and Harris, R. (2007). Developing a Lean Workforce: A Guide for Human Resources, Plant Managers, and Lean Coordinators. New York: Productivity Press. Methodology and symbols to develop the value stream maps in this book were taken from the book Learning to See: Value-Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda by M. Rother and J. Shook. Brookline, MA: The Lean Enterprise Institute, 1998.

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Index a Ability to sprint, RNA, 97 Andon system, 73–78 implementation, 76 information flow and, 78 purchased parts, 78 quality control alarm limits, 76–77 RNA production system, 75–76 visual control of machine, 76 Auditing, 115–124 beyond audit form, 120–124 conducting of 6S audit, 120–122 material delivery route, 123 posting of audits, 123–124 system to audit standardized work, 122–123 cascading audit, 122 development of audit, 118–120 6S audit, 118 standardized work audit, 118–119 timed delivery route and market audit, 119–120 hope manufacturing, 123 information overview, 115–117 information, 115–116 responsibility for information, 117 who needs information, 116–117 kaizen event, 123 kanban cards, 123 key points, 124 material delivery audit form, 121 misconceptions, 115 purposes, 115 sacred time, 123 standardized work audit form, 119, 120 workplace organization, 118 work standards, 116

b Background information, 1–4 definition of information, 1–2 responsibility for information flow, 3–4

who needs information, 2–3 Backtracking, 53

c Cascading audit, 122 COGS, see Cost of goods sold Cost of goods sold (COGS), 57 Current state map, 7 Customer demand rate, 28 Customer order, level production schedule and, 27

d Downtime information, forms of, 80

e EPEI, see Every part every interval Every part every interval (EPEI), 46

f First time quality (FTQ), 70, 109 FTQ, see First time quality Future state map, 8

g Glass wall, 125–138 beyond glass wall, 136–137 current to future state, 131–133 discipline, 137–138 glass wall talk, 136 information overview, 125–128 information, 125–126 responsibility for information, 127–128 who needs information, 126–127 inventory by inventory turns, 134 Kaizen bursts, 131 key points, 138 placement, 129 production status of value stream, 133–135 141

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142 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively delivery, 134 floor space, 135 inventory, 134 plant controllable cost, 134 putting it all together, 135 quality, 133 safety, 133 uptime, 134 talk, 136 template, 130 understanding of, 128–130 choosing a place, 128 establishing a look, 128–129 information needed, 129–130 value stream maps, 130 Group leader, 8

h History side, PSB, 108 Hope manufacturing, 123 Hot sheet, 24

i IEs, see Industrial engineers Industrial engineers (IEs), 90 Information, upstream flow of, 39–55 actual available production time, 46 backtracking, 53 changeover wheel, 49 diagram illustrating pull, 41 every part every interval, 46 how to make information flow, 50–53 individual production area, 42 information flow points, 54 information overview, 39–45 implementation of internal information flow, 43–45 information, 40 responsibility for information, 42–43 who needs information, 40–42 kanban cards, 44, 50 key points, 55 lean connections, 53–55 old way of manufacturing, 53 product pulled from WIP market, 45–49 order to make products, 49 sizing of WIP market, 46–49 running-now board, 52 value stream map, 39 Information flow, A3, 11–19 background box, 12, 13 benefits, 18–19 cause analysis box, 13

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countermeasure box, 14 future actions box, 17 goal, 12 illustrated, 12–18 key points, 19 problem-solving format, 11 schedule box, 15–16 training program, 11 Inventory control, RNA, 61

k Kaizen bursts, 131 Kaizen events, Purchasing and information flow, 68 Kanban card(s) definition of, 26, 32 level production schedule and, 32, 35 removal of from WIP markets, 123 compliance to, 109, 110

l Lean activities, plant layout before, 10 Lean manufacturing, replenishment in, 58 Lean production sample company, see RNA Manufacturing systems, key to success when implementing, 68 Level production schedule, 3, 21–37 current state map, 23 customer demand rate, 28 disruption of production flow, 24–25 downstream process, 24 firm schedule, 24 flow of level schedule, 37 getting started with schedule, 26–28 forecast accuracy, 27–28 order from customer, 27 hot sheet, 24 information, 21–22 information overview, 21 kanban card, 26, 32, 35 key points, 36 level schedule, 28 pacemaker process, 24 pitch, 30 production control department, 22 production expediters, 24 repeaters, 29 responsibility for information, 24–26 runners, 29 sample level schedule, 31 schedule board at production area, 36 schedule board in purchased parts market, 33

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Index n 143 storing of schedule on production floor, 35–36 strangers, 30 takt time, 28–35 getting level schedule to production floor, 33–35 level schedule, 28–31 mechanism for storing level schedule, 31–33 timed material delivery route, 34 tugger, 34 who needs information, 22–24

m Manufacturing facility, uptime information, 80 flows, 4–6 continuous flow, 6 information flow, 4–5 material flow, 5 people flow, 5–6 hope, 123 old way of, 53 Material delivery route, auditing of, 123

o Old way of manufacturing, 53 Organizational chart, 9

p PC&L, see Production Control and Logistics department People flow, 9 PFEP, see Plan for every part Pieces per million (PPM), 70 Plan for every part (PFEP), 60, 67 PPM, see Pieces per million Problem solving, A3 format of, 12 Process level, information at, 87–100 ability to sprint, 97 area standardized work, 98, 99 best method for getting standardized work to production floor, 94–99 combining standard processes, 97–99 placement of standardized work, 94–97 revision of standardized work, 99 developing standardized work, 90–93 information overview, 87–90 information, 87–88 responsibility for information, 89–90 who needs information, 88–89 key points, 100 manufacturing engineers, 90 production engineers, 90

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standardized work as foundation to make information flow, 100 Production, see also Level production schedule area, good information for, 40 batch, A3 problem solving for, 13 pull board, 50, 51 side, PSB, 105 status, value stream, 133 time, actual available, 46 Production Control and Logistics department (PC&L), 10 Production status board (PSB), 104–111 complete, 108 compliance to kanban, 109 continuous improvement side of, 111, 112 first time quality, 109 history side, 108, 109, 110 making schedule, 109 management time frame, 107 physical dimensions, 111–113 production side, 105 production status board, 106, 113 side one, 105–108 expectations per hour, 105–106 management time frame, 107–108 supervisor data, 106–107 side two, 108–11 making schedule (compliance to kanban) chart, 109–110 quality chart, 109 safety chart, 109 uptime tracking, 110–111 PSB, see Production status board Purchased parts market, 32 information flow from, 45 inside workings of, 63 with kanban holders, 65 material delivery route and, 123 overall information flow including, 64 plant layout with, 62 route runner in, 53 sample schedule board in, 33 timed material delivery route, 34 Purchasing and information flow, 57–68 change request form, 66, 67 groups holding information, 60 information overview, 57–60 information, 57–58 responsibility for information, 59–60 who needs information, 58–59 inventory control, 61 kaizen events, 68 key points, 68 purchased parts market, 63 putting it all together, 68

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144 n Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively RNA information flow and purchasing department, 60–67 information flow from production to purchasing, 64–65 information flow from purchasing to production, 66–67 purchased parts market, 62–64 route runner, 63 supplier change, 58 triangle of involvement, 66, 68

q Quality information flow, 69–78 andon system, 73–78 implementation, 76 information flow and, 78 purchased parts, 78 quality control alarm limits, 76–77 RNA production system, 75–76 visual control of machine, 76 information overview, 70–73 information, 70–71 responsibility for information, 72–73 who needs information, 71–72 key points, 78 LIO fixed-stop position, 73 person closest to quality problem, 72 quality control limit, 77 quality problems, 69 workplace organization, 69 zero tolerance policy, 78

r Replenishment, 58 RNA Manufacturing, 6–10 ability to sprint, 97 A3 format of problem solving, 12 andon system, 75 auditing, 118 complete glass wall at, 136 continuous flow, 6 current state map, 7, 23 delivery calculation, 134 diagram of daily demand and daily run, 47 facility size, 6 future state map, 8, 44 glass wall talk, 136 group leader, 8 implementation of internal information flow, 43 information flow initiative, 7 information flow system, 84 inventory control, 61 kanban card, 50

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lean implementation, 6, 18 lean workforce, 8 level schedule, 79 organizational chart, 9 people flow, 9 PFEP manager, 66 plant layout before lean activities, 10 Production System (RPS), 10 purchased parts market, 62 quality control limit, 77 sample level schedule, 31 standardized work, 88 standardized work audit form, 119, 120 team leader, 8 timed material delivery route, 7, 35 tugger, 34 value stream manager, 8 zero tolerance policy, 78 Route runner need for, 62 purchased parts market, 53 WIP market, 53, 55, 63 RPS, see RNA Manufacturing Production System Running-now board, 52

s Sacred time, definition of, 123 Sample company, see RNA Manufacturing Standardized work area, 98, 99 audit form, RNA, 119, 120 auditing of, 122 best method for getting work to production floor, 94–99 combining standard processes, 97–99 placement of standardized work, 94–97 revision of standardized work, 99 foundation to make information flow, 100 placement of, 97 RNA, 88 system to audit, 122–123 upper level managers and, 123 Standard trouble shooting matrix, 84

t Takt time, 28–35 getting level schedule to production floor, 33–35 level schedule, 28–31 mechanism for storing level schedule, 31–33 Team leader, 8 Team level, information at, 101–113

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Index n 145 compliance to kanban, 109, 110 first time quality, 109 information overview, 101–104 information, 101–102 responsibility for information, 103–104 who needs information, 102–103 key points, 13 making schedule, 109 production status board, 113 PSB, 104–111 continuous improvement side of, 111 physical dimensions, 111–113 side one, 105–108 side two, 108–111 quality chart, 109 uptime tracking, 110 Timed material delivery route, 7 definition of, 34 purchased parts market, 34 Toyota A3, 11 Toyota andon system, 73–78 implementation, 76 information flow and, 78 purchased parts, 78 quality control alarm limits, 76–77 RNA production system, 75–76 visual control of machine, 76 Triangle of involvement, 66, 68, 92

u Uptime information flow, 79–85 color-coded gauge, 84, 85 first step to maintenance information flow, 82–83 forms of downtime information, 80 information flow at machine, 83–84 information overview, 79–82

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information, 79–80 responsibility for information, 81–82 who needs information, 80–81 key points, 85 RNA level schedule, 79 RNA radio communication system, 84 standard trouble shooting matrix, 84 uptime resources, 81

v Value stream evaluation, 126 individual production area in, 42 information flow within, 27 inventory by inventory turns, 134 manager, 8, 126, 128 map(s), 6, 10, 23 glass wall showing, 130 information flow, 39 pacemaker, 24, 43 production status, 133 schedule, 6, 39

w WIP market beginning size of, 48 product pulled from, 45–49 order to make products, 49 sizing of WIP market, 46–49 removal of kanban cards from, 123 route runner, 53, 55, 63 Workplace organization audit form, 119

z Zero tolerance policy, 78

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