APICS Top Management Night

“Building a Continuous Improvement Culture”

Mike Pletzer

Importance Of Continuous Improvement Culture

• Enhance a companies ability to compete in a global market place, where Customers expect:

Cost competiveness

Perfect quality

100% on-time delivery to request

• Improve shareholder value by:

Improving profitability quarter over quarter

Increasing return on employed assets:

• Materials

• Machines

• Buildings

• Boost employee satisfaction by:

Addressing issues that frustrate employees

Providing opportunities for honest and sincere appreciation for a job well done

Continuous Improvement Culture

• Key elements of a continuous improvement culture are:

Visual indicators, displays, and controls are used to:

• Display comparisons of expected performance against actual performance

• Drive daily accountability meetings focused on taking action to resolve problems and drive improvement

• Enable GEMBA or management by walking the floor

Process improvement driven by all employees through the following tools:

• Error proofing challenges

• CQI (continuous quality improvement) meetings

• Green/Black belt projects

Employee recognition

• Sincere and honest appreciation for a job well done

Visual Indicators, Displays, and Controls

Standard Work Using Visual Tools

Tier Meetings

GembaWalks

Resource Allocation

Shift Turnovers

Day By Hour

Charts

Importance of creating standard work in a visual factory environment:

• Engrain the use of visual factory tools into everyone’s daily routine

• Set expectations for the required output per day

• Ensure people are taking accountability for challenges and opportunities occurring in the factory

• Structured communication between shifts on how to allocate resources

Day By Hour Chart

•Goals calculators are needed for each area output is going to measured

Realistic goals for the operators based on the WIP they will work on during the shift

• Goal boards need to be able to quickly identify the following:

If the teams are “winning” or “losing”

If a goal is missed why

Goal for the day vs. the backlog

Keys Of Successful Day By Hour charts

• Goals set are realistic

Goals must be attainable but challenging at the same time. If they are consistently beat or missed they lose meaning to the Production Associates

The owner of the goals must be available to validate or adjust goals based on Production Associate input

• Goal calculators must be easy to use

Goals need to be set at the beginning of each shift, which means the process must be fast, reliable and easy

• Follow up on items that causing the teams to miss goals

Failure to take action on why the teams are missing goals results in lost opportunities for efficiency improvement and can demoralize the teams

Tier Accountability

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 1 Meetings (Start of all shift)• Attendees

• Production Leads hold meetings with Production Associates

• Goals• Review safety issues• Review quality and production issues (internal findings)• Review 5s actions• Set direction for the day

Tier 2 Meetings (1.25 hours into all shifts)• Attendees

• Production Supervisors hold meetings with Support Staff

• Goals• Review escalated Tier 1 issues• Review safety issues• Review quality (external and internal findings)• Review previous days production goals

Tier 3 Meetings (1.5 hours into the first shift only)• Attendees

• Operations Manager hold meetings with Support Staff

• Goals• Review escalated Tier 2 items• Review safety issues• Review quality and delivery status• Review lean sigma activity (Kiazens, Green Belts, 5s)• Level 1 Metric review (1 per week)

Example Tier Communication BoardFour times a week the team reviews the key areas of the factory

• Safety • Quality • Delivery • Lean Sigma

Meeting health rated every day• Start on Time• Charts Up-to-Date• People are Prepared• End on Time

Once per week key factory metrics are reviewed

• Metrics need to be relative to customer satisfaction, company profitability, and employee recognition

• Metrics must be able to be affected by those attending the meeting

Keys Of Successful Tier Meetings

• Commit time to complete the Tier meetings every day!

Tier meetings need to take priority over all other activities

• Consistency of topics between the various Tier Meetings

Common platform is required to for information needs to be able to flow between Tier Boards

• Set expectations for the Tier leaders and participants

Lack of preparation for the meetings lead to long and in-effective meetings

GEMBA Walks

GembaWalks

Supervisor Turnover

Set Resource

Plan

Identify/ Follow Up On Issues

Evaluation Of Each

Work Cell

Just Do

Lean Sigma Project

• GEMBA walks are the heart and soul of a visual factory:

Allows Managers/Supervisors to get a daily pulse of how the factory is operating

Sets the factories priorities for all shifts

Provides an opportunity for the Factory Manager to teach/mentor Supervisors

Demonstrates that “Management” is engaged and cares about the factory operations

Keys Of Successful GEMBA Walks

• Commit time to complete the GEMBA walk every day!

Need to treat the GEMBA walk as a priority, it can not be the first thing canceled when people get busy

• Set expectations for each required attendee of the GEMBA walk

Without defined expectations the GEMBA walk becomes a social event and loses it value

• Include all functional groups in the GEMBA walk

Important for all functional groups/team members to understand how they are impacting each other

• Be conscious that your presence and actions are being noticed

Need to be conscious of the topics being discussed and how they impact employees

The management team on the GEMBA walk should work to engage all employees during the GEMBA walk

Utilization Of Lean Tools

Lean Project Management

• Targeted at challenges that can be solved by intensive focus in a short period of time

• Operators attack issues that affect them on daily basis

Kaizen

Error Proofing

CQI

Green/Black Belt

• Factory management reviews KPIs (key performance indicators) to identify improvement projects

• Complex projects that require use of advanced lean tools structured through the DMAIC process

• Projects scoped to take 3 – 12 months

Error Proofing Example

Error Proofing Example

Error Proofing Example

• The EPC solution was just the start of the work – the solution changed the whole process

Needed to buy tooling to make enable the process

Needed to create process to deploy the “tape shapes”

175 assemblies needed “tape shape” programs created for them

Needed to update 175 assembly build instructions

Process needed to be created for new assemblies

Employee Recognition

Employee Recognition

EmployeeRecognition

Wall of fame – centrally located area to recognize significant achievements

Gallery Walk – Employees get to share their projects with their fellow employees

Recognition Lunch – thank all participants for their efforts and pick an EPC winner

Lean Report Outs – Participants report out on their projects to the site management staff

Employee Recognition

• Gallery Walk

EPC, Green Belt, and Black Belt participants create a poster board of their project

Team members present their projects to their piers on all three shifts

Enables best practice sharing through-out the organization as one local solution may apply to other parts of the organization

Summary• Lessons Learned

Creating a continuous improvement culture is hard work that takes the resolve and commitment of entire management staff

Reach out to multiple resources to get ideas and help in your journey

• Customers

• Suppliers

• Industry Resources

Determine which tools and processes work best for your situation

Encourage creativity in tool development, while still keeping in the mind the need for a commonly understood platform

Provide support and be flexible when something doesn’t work

• Remember this continuous improvement, the first effort is not always successful

Remember to recognize and thank your employee for their effort

• Sincere and honest appreciation for a job well done is critical!

Thank You!

Please See Me After For Questions