In our previous two posts, we discussed the worldwide trend of increasing product customization and specialization and the many implications of that.  One being the introduction of more variation into our work processes from up-front selling and quoting through design, purchasing, manufacturing and distribution.

So how do we take advantage of the desired variation of specialized products that meet specific customer needs while avoiding the unwanted variation that diminishes quality, efficiency, predictability and profitability?

Well, one way to reduce unwanted variation is to ensure that the work itself is being done the ONE BEST WAY.  And we do that by having a great job training system.

Where to Start – TWI

A great job training system starts with clear requirements.

Clear requirements are getting tougher to define as jobs get more complex and continually change.  But answers are available using a decades-old, tried and true system called “Training Within Industry” (TWI).  And IMC has adapted TWI to align with today’s more complex jobs and rapid pace of change.

Defining the ONE BEST WAY

TWI Implementation starts with “Job Breakdown Sheets” that provide a consistent format or template for identifying:

• Steps of the job
• How-to perform the steps
• Why the step is important (usually for key steps)

The aim of the Job Breakdown Sheet is to describe the ONE BEST WAY for doing a job as simply and briefly as possible while ensuring consistency of results and outputs.  And of course, the people developing the Job Breakdown Sheets must know the jobs well.

Job Breakdown Sheet templates are available from many sources.  We at IMC often use a format developed by Systems 2 Win.

Up Next

In our next article we’ll talk about next steps for implementing TWI and introduce IMC’s recently developed “Training System Self-Assessment” that’s available to all area manufacturers.

Stop the CHAOS! Improve Your Training

The Inevitable Trend

In our previous post, we talked about the worldwide trend towards more customized and specialized products and how that trend translates into significant challenges (and opportunities) for manufacturers.

Let’s face it. Making more customized and specialized products (that are more complex and always changing) and doing that efficiently and profitably isn’t easy.

Variation and Chaos

Customization introduces more variation and puts pressure on our traditional methods of quoting, purchasing materials, design and then manufacturing these differentiated products.  And when our operational systems aren’t a match for these increased demands, we get… CHAOS.

So what is chaos?  Chaos is simply the reactive environment we get when an overabundance of variation breaks down our routines.  As we know from Lean / Continuous Improvement, unwanted variation is the #1 enemy of manufacturing and it results in a) operational waste and inefficiency; b) a culture of reactivity; c) a lack of profitability; and d) employee frustration.

Reducing Chaos

So how do we meet customer increased demands while reducing or eliminating the variation that creates the chaos?

Well there’s a combination of answers to that. But for one thing, we sure don’t want lots of variation in how our people perform their work. Manufacturers MUST have effective training and qualification methods that ensure that workers are able to consistently perform work THE ONE-BEST-WAY. And that requires a top-to-bottom effective training system.

And the good news is that there are proven, time-tested tools and methods that any company can learn and apply that will ensure that people are able to do their jobs the one-best-way. And to continually adapt that one-best-way as requirements change.

In our next article we’ll continue the discussion with something called “Training Within Industry” (TWI) and how IMC is adapting TWI to help manufacturers reduce variation, errors, frustration and chaos and to increase efficiency and profitability. We’ll start with “Job Breakdown Sheets” and the basic “how-to” of effective training and go from there.

So until then, let’s keep turning challenges into opportunities.

Customized, Specialized Products – Challenging? Yes.  Doable? Definitely!

THE OPPORTUNITY

I think we all get it that the manufacturing we lost to foreign competition (China in particular) over the past couple decades was mostly commodity products that they could make much cheaper and often “good enough”.

But as we’re all seeing now, the worldwide trend is away from simple-to-make commodity products and long product runs and towards increasingly specialized, customized products and low volume, even one-at-a-time product runs. 

THE CHALLENGE

More and more often, the demand is to be able to…

1. Continually discover, understand, and define the customer’s evolving needs;
2. Rapidly design a product that meets those needs;
3. Rapidly and efficiently manufacture a product that may be different (parts, materials, sizes, functionality, colors, packaging, etc.) and more complex; and
4. Get the product to the customer on time and in a short timeframe

So, is that easy?  Heck no.  But that’s where the money is and how we maintain and grow customers and relationships.

In a nutshell it’s all about “rapid adaptability” throughout the entire business.

THE SOLUTION

So the question is… How do we do rapid adaptability?  Or how do we “standardize the customized”?

Well the good news is that answers exist.  And while every company has unique challenges that require a tailored approach, there are tried and true methodologies for becoming an increasingly efficient and effective manufacturer of complex customized products.

And the really good news is that the resources for doing that are right here in Central PA.

IMC can support your efforts on the “customer side” and on the “design and manufacturing side”.  That’s what we’re all about and as your Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center, we’re at your service.

If you’d like to find out more, contact us at info@imcpa.com or call 800-326-9467.

Below is a real story with multiple timely and important messages from one of our area manufacturing leaders who has chosen to remain anonymous.

One of the important messages… Yes, it’s important to be as efficient as possible in how we do things (continual process improvement).  But if we want sustainable success, we also have to continually innovate what we bring to the marketplace.  As in creating new and differentiated products and services that are meaningful to customers.  Because the competitive landscape is a more rapidly evolving place than ever. Check it out.

Today’s lunch learning is more personal.  A few months ago, I got news that a plant I once managed (20+ years ago), a super plant it was called in its day, a model for operations around the globe was closing and it was moving to Mexico.  It reminded me in the days of super competition in electronics where our plant was competing, not just for business for its overall corporate needs, but our individual plant was competing too within the organization and globally.  The livelihood of our people had to do also with its competitiveness within the organization.  I used to say, we want to have the best bike!  The bike everyone wants to have.  When customers come to the US and are going to visit a plant, and there are 10 of them, we want ours to be the one chosen.  We needed the best, the most enthusiastic people.  The best the most cutting edge and performing assembly lines.  Not just that perform, but that were “marketable.”  We needed to provide for the community in a visible way too.  And we did!  And we were very successful.  We were on all the college tours, excellence tours and even written about in top improvement books having to do with World Class Manufacturing.

Now after 20 years, its going to be gone, and the people there were told that there aren’t jobs for them at other plants.  The best performing plant in the past, no longer a star.  Its not to be looked at as a model of what to do and how to do it, but maybe what not to do.  The employees once leading the culture change, now gobbled up by another.  What is the lesson?  Hard to say and its likely many contributors, but maybe, it got complacent.  Maybe in its glory it lost sight.  I know, some of you might feel how can you compete south of the boarder, I know we can as we did successfully for some time.  Maybe it forgot it was competing.

I learned early about competition starting my career in Boston.  Simplifying, we were told once to embrace in-process manufacturing and eliminate departments.  I remember being a bit on the side lines and very observant noting that the company gave corporate every excuse why we couldn’t do what they wanted.  We didn’t know another plant, not as experienced, was given the same directive.  They were successful, we weren’t.  One day I came in, every manager and most senior level types we gone.  Of course, then all the support types reported that they could do as desired, but the wheels of motion were already in play.  It was the start of my career and success, I think because I learned from this.  I never forgot that experience.  It was a scary hard truth.  I literately let hundreds of people go as the plant closed and moved.  The hollow look in their eyes would later be a motivator to me to prevent similar.  I still have contact with those very first employees too, how lucky a guy!

I think about how many great companies we remember and who would ever think that they could collapse, vanish….They were the best of the best!  Weren’t they?  I think this helps to point to the need to be constantly innovative.  To be humble and competitive in all times.  To use innovation and break paradigms.  History is knowledge, if we choose to pay attention.  At least, that is what I think!  Remember these folks next time one thinks they are too big to fall.  I point to business, but we can also point to people.

• Sears – ????
• Panam
• Compaq
• MCI – WorldCom
• Enron
• Arthur Anderson
• TWA
• Woolworth’s
• Eastern Airlines
• Kodak
• Block Buster
• Radio Shack
• Polaroid”

A very good (and short – 3 pages big print) research-based article on innovation as a system.  Very much supports the whole concept that is Innovation Engineering – that innovation is a systemizable business practice that any organization can on-board and benefit from.  And consistent with IE concepts and ideas.

Whether CI or Innovation, it’s all about the system or lack of it.  The realization is that these management systems drive success because they activate and foster the “raw material” that’s already there.  People’s creative horsepower.

Click here to check it out.

A rapidly evolving part of advancing your Continuous Improvement (CI) system, specific practices and initiatives is understanding the various technologies that can be applied to support solutions.  This technology advancement is a big deal but can get messed up (lose money) or be very beneficial (make money).  And your role can have much to do with it going well.  That starts with emphasizing that without good “CI systems thinking and A-3 / PDCA type methodology”, the selection and application of process improvement technologies is likely to be messy or even misguided and costly.

Click here for a one page illustration that I got from a McKinsey article.  I like the concept, the way it’s organized.  You’ll see that the “wheel” advises about what types of technologies (hard and soft technologies and practices) align with what type of applications starting with most general at the hub and then working out to more specifics.  I’m finding it a nice resource for thinking about what applications might fit for what needs and opportunities.  It could also be used to help identify what technologies and associated practices you and your organization might want to learn more about or not (people / skill development).

Keep in mind that being a “CI Manager” has much to do with getting your company to become more of a learning organization.  And you have to be selective about that – as in advancing your knowledge primarily on things that will improve efficiency and effectiveness – i.e., business results.

I attended a collaborative robots (cobots) event yesterday that IMC cosponsored with the PA CareerLink for Columbia/Montour Counties and thought it worth a few observations within the context of lean/ continuous improvement.

The Perfect Process

Let’s ask ourselves…  What is the perfect production process?  Well, a process that’s being performed the “current one best way” (standard work) in a way that is 100% repeatable and predictable with no variation AND that can adapt if there are changes required AND can be continually improved.

We’d all love to have that, right?  As we say, Lean/CI is about aiming for perfect yet knowing it isn’t achievable (a golf score of 18).  It’s in the CI efforts that we keep getting closer and succeed as a result.

How Cobots Might Help

Cobots are a developing technology that can be an important part of our CI efforts.  They’re designed to work alongside people and to be able to do specialized tasks that may be mundane (lower value work) or unsafe (repetitive motion) or need to be very precise.  They’re small enough that they can be picked up and moved around easily and safe enough that they don’t usually need guarding.

So if you think about Problem – Causes – Solutions (PDCA or DMAIC).  Cobots can be a solution in the right situation.  But the key to successful application is to start by doing a great job of identifying the right problem, getting to root cause and then considering and prioritizing solutions.  Not jumping to an assumed solution that a robot will save the day (oh yeah, we never do that).

Lean/CI More Than Ever

Like anything new, these technologies have the potential to separate winners from losers.  And the winners will be the ones who have that CI operational culture and practices first and then apply cobots and other technologies as solutions to effective Lean/CI efforts.

Consider Getting to Know Cobots

My advice would be to identify an internal resource to stay attuned to this continually emerging and developing technology.  Below is a link to an organization and a book called “Lean Robotics” that was mentioned yesterday by the presenter from Universal Robotics.  I haven’t read it but plan to check it out.  https://leanrobotics.org/.

Dear Manufacturing Leaders – Much talk about millennials these days and in particular as relates to manufacturing.  Below is a link to a pretty good article about attracting and retaining people and millennials in particular – the fastest growing generation in the workplace.  Jeff Kopenitz mentioned this fellow Jason Dorsey as the guru of workplace generational considerations.  Other good stuff related to the subject on this site.

Click here to read “Unlocking Millennial Talent.

Two thoughts having just read it.

1. Millennials are clearly less willing to accept a “just do your job” type of workplace experience.  Good for them.
2. The “key organizational capabilities” for business success in today’s more complex, competitive and fast-changing world – system-wide continuous improvement and innovation – are exactly aligned with what millennials are looking for.  So in getting really good at systematic process improvement (Lean/CI) and product & service reinvention (innovation), you also create a workplace that attracts and retains the most talented young people.  That’s winning.

Also FYI, we recently developed a template of a selection and retention improvement strategy.  It’s something that I think any company could work from to develop a company-specific selection and retention improvement strategy.  Let me know if you’d like a copy.