October 12, 2015 Articles In 2015 the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) completed Made in China 2025, which it had prepared for over a period of two and a half years with 150 experts from the China Academy of Engineering and in collaboration with three other ministries. The China Daily News reported in April that the document, described as a road-map for the future of manufacturing, had gone to the State Council. A summary of the document was made available in a State Council document in May 2015. There are reports that a further plan is in preparation to transform China into a leading manufacturing power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. Made in China 2025 stresses that Chinese manufacturing needs to get beyond making ever greater quantities and focus on higher quality with a strong emphasis on sustainability. Innovation is the primary means of achieving this and it can only be delivered via a strong emphasis on talent and skills. China wants to reposition its manufacturing sector within global value chains and like so many other nations move up market to higher value added segments. There is an explicit goal of raising the domestic content of core components and materials to 40% by 2020 and 70% by 2025. Echoing the UK’s policy for Catapults, which is itself based on the well-established Fraunhofer model in Germany, the road-map commits to creating15 manufacturing innovation centres by 2020 and 40 by 2025. A major change is envisaged in the approach to intellectual property rights with protections for SMEs and a more constructive approach to IPR in overall business strategy at all levels in Chinese manufacturing. The importance of international standards is also highlighted in the plan together with the need for Chinese manufacturers to take a more active role in their development. New energy vehicles and equipment, agricultural equipment, aerospace and aeronautical equipment, maritime equipment and high-tec shipping and modern rail equipment are amongst the 10 priority sectors identified in the plan. This is particularly important from the UK point of view as a potent transport equipment manufacturing cluster has been developing for some years. The other sectors in the top ten are advanced information technology, automated machine tools and robotics, power equipment, new materials and biopharma and advanced medicinal products. Several of these are part of the supply chain for transport equipment manufacturing. But although Made in China 2025 highlights these ten sectors it focuses on the whole manufacturing sector and stresses that the whole sector needs to progress and not just the priority areas. Some commentators detect Japanese and German national strategy models in the construction of Made in China 2025.poP Made in China 2025 also identifies a set of priority tasks: improving manufacturing innovation, integrating technology and industry, strengthening the industrial base, building Chinese brands, pushing through green manufacturing, restructuring the manufacturing sector, developing service oriented manufacturing and internationalising Chinese manufacturing. This portfolio reflects the awareness that China is under pressure from other emerging economies but advanced competitors including Germany, Japan and the US already are well advanced with policies and programmes to promote advanced manufacturing. The Global Automotive Forum (GAF) Speaking at the opening of the Global Automotive Forum (GAF) in Chongqing, Wang Xia, the chairman of the automotive committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, reiterated one of the core messages in Made in China 2025, stressing that Chinese automakers need to improve their manufacturing quality. This improvement is needed to raise the standing of Chinese auto brands to match international brands. Chinese component suppliers need to connect with the global market. The GAF is considered the most prestigious auto industry forum in China and the theme of the 2015 event was ‘Mega-Change: Reshaping and Industry’. There were 800 participants attending from 17 countries. The GAF included a brainstorming session on the future of new energy vehicles. The concept of new energy vehicles which is one of the 10 priority sectors in Made in China 2025 covers the development of hydrogen powered fuel cells, hybrids and electric cars. Honda presented the advances they have made with fuel cell powered vehicles which are in trial production. Continental discussed the severity of the Chinese auto energy consumption standard for 2020 and the way that achieving it required changes across the whole supply chain. The existing Chinese policy instruments were discussed which include the progress made in introducing new energy buses.However the energy performance of Chinese made bus batteries has some way to go before it meets the best international standards. Chinese ministries have made progress in developing a coherent body of measures to encourage electric car ownership Chinese automaker, BYD Auto in Shenzhen which sold over half a million vehicles in 2013, has a joint venture with Daimler AG which makes luxury electric cars sold under the Denza brand. Its first model went on sale at the end of 2014 and the manufacturing volumes planned is 40,000 a year. It is also building an electric car factory in Brazil targeting the taxi and car sharing segments. In addition it makes plug-in hybrids sold under the BYD brand. Chinese automakers assess that no Western carmaker has established yet a strong electric car brand and this represents an opportunity for them. The largest ever Chinese designed and built aircraft is the Comac C919 170 seat twin engine narrow bodied airliner.The first aircraft rolled out in September 2015 and first delivery is planned for 2018. China has the explicit goal of breaking the Boeing-Airbus duopoly and 300 and 400 seat airliners are in development. The engines for the C909 will be provided by CFM International – one of several international firms in the supply chain. Experts judge that the C909 is like to be priced lower than the equivalent models from Boeing and Airbus. A number of Western commentators have raised the question whether China can produce enough PhDs to support large competitive transport equipment manufacturing sector. On the other hand, Professor Williamson of the Judge Business School at Cambridge has reported that in certain sectors China is already developing new innovative product development methods which utilise large numbers of lower level technicians. At this point it is impossible to judge whether these innovative approaches can be adapted to automotive and aerospace but it would be unwise to dismiss the possibility. It is worth remembering that BYD Auto has already been ranked as one of the world’s most innovative companies.
October 7, 2015 Industry Forum Blog Is filling in your boards a tick box exercise or do you use them as a tool to enable improved performance and engage employees? Visual Management Boards are just one of the ways you can communicate with all the levels in your company. By themselves they don’t actually make improvements or, in fact, do that much communicating! They need to be bought to life by people using them and they need to be designed and placed carefully. Here are my top 10 features to consider when designing and using the boards. As well as drawing from personal experience they include the results of research into the use of Visual Management in workplace communications Design Involve the local team of employees in the design and ongoing use of the board. This promotes ownership Keep the information appropriate to the area but do show a clear link to your company policy and area objectives. This brings operational and strategic performance measures together in one place; a key part of the Integration Model Where the workplace has many boards, and they are used as the focal point of daily, weekly and monthly reviews do have a standard overall layout. This makes it easier for users to interpret. The local team still decide the content, but within the layout guidelines.Boards typically contain information on the inputs and outputs of the process (man, material, machine, quality, cost and delivery) as well as improvement and safety.The feature I like on this board is that the chart holders are reversible. Plenty of space for different teams or additional information Ensure the board communicates positive information, not just negative For the information displayed use these three key visual management principles: Use the right graphical tool to convey the data Use colour sparingly, for example just to highlight key features Avoid using excessive borders and boxes; aim at a minimum ink to data ratio. For example use lighter lines instead of black, or none where possible Use Use the board for daily team briefings as well as the scheduled management review meetings. This gets managers away from outdated written reports and into the workplace To aid this process, position the boards close to the place of work, or at a key focal point, where they can be easily gathered around. Boards can be used for non manufacturing areas as well Remember these briefings, or huddles, should be a two way communication process Ensure the information is kept up to date: Appoint a board (or chart) owner Update or draw graphs by hand if you don’t have the necessary time or equipment. This is often the case where short interval monitors are used to manage the process Last, but definitely not least. Use this information to drive the improvement process. If your data isn’t turned into information and acted on to make an improvement, it is just fancy wallpaper We hope these ideas will help you in either creating or improving this aspect of your communication and improvement process. We love to hear and see examples of boards you have found that work particularly well for you. Thank you to KMF for providing this example. If you would like to know more about Visual Management Boards and other management for manufacturers, why not check out our Leadership Development Programme
September 30, 2015 Industry Forum Blog Are you in a position where you need to improve your information or people based processes? This may be to meet new company objectives or because they are currently causing you problems. I most often find companies want to: Improve the cash flow cycle – get paid more quickly. Reduce the time it takes to do the task, like turn round quotes. Improve customer ratings on standards of service. Meet deadlines. My recommended approach is to; map the current process, identify the problems and opportunities for improvement and deploy the right lean tool in the right place. Do not be tempted by a blanket deployment of 5S, huddle boards and Standardised Work across a whole department. It rarely produces measurable results and nearly always alienates the workforce. The approach State what it is you want to improve. Which task in which department? State your target and the link to company objectives. Form a team involving people from the area. Having people who know what actually happens is vital as these tasks are much harder to observe than manufacturing ones. Think of the task as a process with inputs and outputs. Decide what the “material” you are processing is. It could be numerical data, documents or a person. This helps us in step 4. When compiling a month end financial report we followed the flow of data into the final document. When booking in cars for service we followed the interaction with the car owner and then the route of the vehicle. Physically capture the current process as it actually Use a suitable mapping tool. Go to where the work is carried out. Observe, ask questions. Don’t fall into the trap of using an existing procedure or one person’s opinion. Enhance the map with supporting data and key measures. Spot wastes, threats and opportunities for improvement in the process. Get the team to stand around the map, brainstorm, and attach sticky notes where they occur. I always use the standard 7 Waste tool, with non-manufacturing examples given for each waste. In particular I get teams to look for order corruption, back flows and disconnects. You can be pedantic and classify these as one of the 7 Wastes, but it helps teams to identify them when they are highlighted in this way. Make sure to pay attention to the interfaces between departments, customers and suppliers as well. At this point it also works well to identify opportunities for improvement. This helps to move the team into the next step. Create a future state. Draw what you want the process to look like – especially if you used one of the mapping tools. With a simple process flow it may be enough to just eliminate the identified wastes and not draw a future state. Identify the most appropriate lean tools. Deploy them in a way to achieve the future state and eliminate the wastes you spotted. Avoid these problems. As with any improvement activity follow up and close out actions for sustainability. Make sure you communicate what is happening to everyone and train the wider team in the new and improved processes. Calculate savings and benefits. Keep looking for ways to improve. Future blogs will highlight ways of applying the right lean tool in the right place. If you want to share your examples please send them in.
September 23, 2015 Industry Forum Blog Setting up a system to improve your New Product Introduction (NPI) process has been identified as one of the six basic success factors to improve your ability to get new products to market quicker and cheaper. What is a lesson learned? The identification of project activities that went well and not so well Subsequent analysis resulting in recommendations for improvements Implementation of recommendations to realise benefits Lessons should be sought, captured and acted upon throughout the life of the project. When do we capture lessons learned? Ideally from the beginning to the end of the project. Some organisations find it useful to set formal points as well. Typically these occur when stage end reports for gate reviews are compiled and at the close of the project. What are the benefits? These are examples of times when organisations have used their lessons log and what they have used them for. When setting up the project board – who to include When selecting the project manager – which skills are desirable When outlining the business case – how to phrase it When setting up the risk management strategy. What threats and opportunities affected previous projects to help identify risks and appropriate risk responses Setting up cross-functional teams – mix of people When creating stage plans – suitable timescales Also have a look at the role lessons learned played in the building and staging of the 2012 Olympics. Who is responsible? The project sponsor and the project manager create a new lessons learned log during the project start up phase. They also review existing logs and implement relevant actions in the new plans. Once underway, it is up to everybody involved in the project team, even stakeholders, to seek out lessons learned. The project manager is responsible for ensuring these are captured acted upon. They can delegate completion of tasks but not responsibility for ensuring they are done. The role of Lessons Learned in the 2012 Olympic games The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) for London 2012 delivered this huge public project on time and on budget with a 5 year lead time. Key objectives included: The greenest games ever Utilisation of the venues after the games to ensure certain return on investment Not only did Lord Coe and the project teams review lessons learned from previous Olympic games but part of the legacy of London 2012 was to formally share lessons learned during construction and staging. Lord Coe attended the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to see how the city coped with hosting such a large event and experienced first hand how they recovered from unforeseen challenges such as the warm weather at Cypress Mountain. The ODA set its own green and cost effectiveness guidelines and planned how venues would be utilised after the games. Nobody wanted a repeat of the moth balled swimming pool from Beijing 2008! London 2012 is sharing the knowledge and the lessons learned through the Learning Legacy project. Although we don’t need them to plan another UK based Olympics in the near future, they can be applied to other construction, transport and sustainable event based projects. In addition many of the individual lessons can be applied to an even wider project base. If you can think of at least one improvement to the way your New Product Introduction(NPI) system runs, add it to your Lessons Learned. And if you don’t have such a system, consider setting one up.
September 16, 2015 Industry Forum Blog Does your Training Needs Analysis result in an affordable and robust organisation wide training plan? Does it prioritise learning and development to meet both current and future requirements? If not don’t worry. This blog introduces a model developed at Industry Forum that will help you work through this daunting task. The Training Needs Analysis Cycle In this model TNAs are undertaken at three levels; organisational, departmental and individual. The responsible person at each level inputs key information into the process. This information is designed to answer four important questions: Why do people need the training? What skills need to be taught? Who needs the training? What are the priority areas for training? The three levels are interlinked to ensure that a balanced analysis is produced. This takes into account the company’s strategic plans, the departmental objectives and each individual’s needs. The outcome of the cycle is a robust, organisation wide learning and development plan that has an approved budget. The benefit If you deliver the resulting training plans you will ensure you have sufficient capability within the organisation to sustain current and future business performance. Deployment tips Initially this model was developed to help organisations deploying the Training and Education Pillar of Total Productive Maintenance. However, with minor adaptation it works in any organisation. The work done at organisational level in a TPM company is done by the T&E pillar team. Alternatively use a team of senior representatives responsible for training in the organisation. One of the important inputs at departmental level is losses; specifically those losses that are the result of inadequate skills. Don’t be put off by terminology, quantify the problems you encounter because of inadequate skills. This input allows you to prioritise which skills require improving. We recommend developing your framework and testing it in a pilot area. Once running smoothly, roll it out to the rest of the organisation. The full TNA cycle needs to be conducted on an annual basis, to align with your policy deployment cycle. Ideally you would do this before any training solutions are budgeted, designed or delivered. Departmental level and individual level reviews typically happen at a frequency of 6 or 3 months. If you want to find out more about how to deploy the Training Needs Analysis Cycle please contact us.
September 11, 2015 Industry Forum Blog One of the four stability pillars, T&E is often lost amongst the wealth of more technical information on equipment care and maintenance. But ignore T&E at your peril. It is initially deployed in the TPM journey alongside Focussed Improvement, Autonomous Maintenance and Planned Maintenance in order to improve production efficiency. However, ongoing deployment is a key part in achieving the goal of zero accidents, zero defects and zero breakdowns across the whole organisation. How? This pillar focuses on eliminating the losses caused by inadequate skills. Ongoing deployment of a 6 step methodology produces an organisation wide picture of these losses allowing them to be fully understood, prioritised and actioned. Which skills? Every individual within the organisation needs to be fully trained in their job role. It’s not just the practical skills of equipment operators that are vital in eliminating loss across the company. The managerial, technical and administrative skills for all roles must be raised. What do we get from deploying the pillar? In a nutshell the outcomes of deploying the pillar include systems that will: Continually monitor the training required to meet the long term vision of the company. Set the methodology and standards for a range of training processes. Create effective training plans to maximise the potential of every employee. How do theses outcomes benefit us? They ensure that in a world where technology, materials and competitors are changing at an increasing rate, training for the right skills is continually identified and provided. They allow the company to plan for long term goals such as the calibre of individual employees required at certain times. A thorough Training Needs Analysis results in a company succession plan, individual career plans and personalised training programmes. The resulting training opportunities make employees feel valued and ensure the succession plan is fulfilled internally. Employee turnover is reduced as well as the need for recruitment. They reduce the true costs associated with training. Whilst the first column represents what we typically see as the costs of training in the accounts, the second column shows the true amount. It includes the cost of the losses that occur due to inadequate skills. When the company invests in training programmes that improve peoples’ skills and in turn efficiency in the workplace, the total training cost falls as both losses and recruitment costs reduce. As an added bonus a well structured and documented training process will easily provide the proof required for organisations to comply with various standards and audits such as VDA 6.3 and ISOTS16949. How do I start deployment of T&E? I recommend following the six steps of the T&E pillar used by JIPM. The steps provide a logical approach to getting the most out of your training and education activities. You can find out more about T&E by watching our short video clip or by attending training programmes such as the Industry Forum 2 day T&E course. In my experience the part that most companies struggle with is conducting a company wide Training Needs Analysis as part of step 2. In the next blog I will introduce our Training Needs Analysis Cycle which helps companies conduct this vital groundwork. If you have any further questions about T&E please contact us.
September 7, 2015 Industry Forum Blog All too often I hear about cases where the deployment of lean techniques has failed and lean is rejected by the people it was meant to help. I’m particularly disappointed when these occur in work environments that process information or deal with people, like offices, health care, transport and other service providers. So if you are new to lean, or a lean convert from a manufacturing background, and are keen to give it a go in your office, here are my top 4 pitfalls to avoid. Blitzing people’s personal items instead of improving the information flow Carrying out a 5S activity is done to eliminate waste and support the process in an improved state. It should not be done to “improve housekeeping” and make the place look tidy. In the office environment the process centres on the flow of information (or people). So is diving in and removing personal photos and snacks from desks supporting an improved work flow? Or will it just antagonise people? I have found that a 5S activity that supports improved flow and makes peoples work easier is more successful. Often the activity focus is in shared work areas, both physical and electronic. Using lots and lots of yellow tape Again, I’ve seen 5S deployed in an office where every waste paper bin and pot plant ended up surrounded by squares of yellow tape. Result – unimpressed manager! Two points here: Yellow tape should only be used as a temporary measure until the right position for an essential item is agreed upon. Then a smarter, more subtle and permanent method for indicating the home location can be used. Is marking the position of the pot plant helping to support an improved work flow? Don’t go mad with the tape! Failing to involve the people who work in the area Using a team approach that includes people from the work area is standard best practice. They have the working knowledge and skills required to contribute to the best improvements. More importantly doing lean to people, instead of involving them, causes alienation and rejection. If you don’t believe me try the Wallet Exercise! Not using data to focus and show improvement Teams need to fully understand how an area works before they make any physical changes. This helps them to select the right improvement tool and apply it where it counts – see points 1 and 2. Information and people based processes are not exempt from this. In fact as the processes are often harder to see than manufacturing ones, it’s even more important to do this. To start, collect and analyse key data, map the process and understand the targets or objectives for that function. Later comparison to original data will show how the improvement is going. It is vital to demonstrate that the effort you put in does affect the bottom line. There are of course more than these 4 things that can foil your activity. But my advice is to give it a go and learn by doing. Always review what you have done and keep learning points for next time you apply the technique. True understanding of lean comes with application. I will write some follow up blogs giving examples of how lean techniques can be successfully applied to information based environments. If you want to share your examples and learning points then please send them in.
August 27, 2015 Articles In 2013 The Policy Exchange published David Willetts’ paper on Eight Great Technologies. This emerged in parallel to an exercise by the European Commission to identify Six Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) as part of the Horizon 2020 R&D programme. One of Willetts’ eight was Robotics and Autonomous Systems which was not explicitly highlighted by the Commission but wrapped up partially in the more general heading Advanced Manufacturing Equipment. The Commission have set up a KET Observatory to publish regular reports on how the Community is progressing in each area. The latest, published at the beginning of this year, found that advanced manufacturing equipment is the only one of the 6 KETs where Europe has global leadership. In March 2015 the Coalition published an important document about the UK’s segment of this European strategic cluster – the Government response to the national strategy proposal, RAS 2020: Robotics and Autonomous Systems which Innovate UK had published in July 2014. Willett’s original analysis observed that outside automotive the UK utilised robots to a much lesser degree than Japan and Germany but he put the case for supporting RAS partly on the potential future use of autonomous systems in automotive and aerospace, two sectors where the UK is remains globally competitive. The substantial investment that has taken place recently in UK automotive both in the vehicle manufacturers and the supply chain will have strengthened the UK robotics user base with over 70 per cent of recent sales of robots in the UK currently going into the sector. According to RAS2020 the technology will have some effect on 15 percent of the UK GVA worth over £200bn. In manufacturing there could be an increase in the productivity of over 20 percent and an increase in employment of 7 percent. Within the public sector there are significant potential benefits in security, healthcare and infrastructure management. In agriculture and the food supply chain there is potential for raising yields, increasing shelf-life, reducing waste and energy inefficiency and improving traceability. Energy sectors such as civil nuclear and offshore are also significant application areas for RAS. The strategy recommends that investment should be managed nationally in terms of five strands – assets, challenges, clusters, skills and coordination and that there needs to be some means of integrating the work of different funding agencies and a new national RAS Leadership Council. Outreach and public dialogue should continue and connect with public concerns. Developing national standards and the promotion of the UK as a destination for inward investment by UKTI are also priorities. The Government response took the form of a letter in March 2015 from Minister of Science, Greg Clark, to Professors Rob Buckingham and David Lane. He confirms that the UK’s research and innovation capability in RAS has grown over the last few years. Within Framework 7 the UK secured 80m million Euros of research funding from the total robotics research budget of 485m Euros – this budget has risen to 700m Euros in Horizon 2020. Significantly, Clark has agreed to the establishment of a RAS Leadership Council. In aerospace Clark points out that the UK now has one of the world’s most capable unmanned aircraft systems test and evaluation facilities in the West Wales UAS Environment at Parc, Aberporth. In automotive he refers to the substantial investment under way as part of the Automotive Industrial Strategy with significant public funding. The Government has also invested £20m in four new Centres of Doctoral Training in RAS. He suggests that the UK has major potential to benefit from the growth in global markets in industrial robotics, healthcare robotics, intelligent transport and automated farming. It is important to be realistic about the competitive environment for this industry. Half the 24 teams in the finals of the US’s DARPA Robotics Challenge in June 2015 came from the US and 9 were Asian. Only three were European – 2 from Germany and 1 from Italy. The US industry is likely to benefit greatly from the US’s current military technology priorities where there is a strong drive to increase the US’s global lead. Plimsoll have just published an analysis of 80 firms in the UK robotics sector. Just under 60 per cent of firms get a performance rating of good or better but at the other extreme, over a quarter of the firms are making a loss and ripe for takeover. In August 2013 Edelman, the global PR firm, noted that robotics progress may be held back by two image issues. The first is the widespread belief that the technology will create unemployment. The second is the consequence of the widespread controversial overseas use of drones by the US. In June of this year Edelman reported that since then, across the globe, the general level of public trust in technology has started a significant decline. Also in 2013 the International Federation of Robotics published a study by London based Metra Martech on Robotics and Employment which presented evidence that in practice robotics is creating overall employment increase via the downstream impact of the technology. Manufacturing jobs are also safeguarded by the higher productivity and competitiveness that the technology can bring which helps higher wage rate countries stay in manufacturing. The food industry, the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, is a fruitful application area where the technology is a way of making the workplace safer, meeting more stringent regulations and increasing job quality. In the UK, where the business services sector is now as large as manufacturing, capability in robotics implementation and support will help keep this sector on its expansion track. The UK strategy covers the reputational dimension explicitly in terms of extending public outreach and engagement, continuing to change public perception and improve understanding of public concerns. A good start was made on this with the Sciencewise study of public thinking on RAS which found that the area where the public must strongly disapprove of deploying the technology is care of the elderly, children and the disabled. One of the most important attitudinal constraints for the technology in the UK, identified by the All Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group and confirmed by ABB Robotics, is the lack of ambition in some SMEs and the persistence of short term thinking. There is plenty of help and advice available to these firms on how to boost agility and flexibility via automation but there needs to be a wider appreciation that the utility of robotics isn’t just limited to the large scale long production runs found in automotive. Further information: enquires@if.wearecoal.work +44 (0)121 717 6600 Download Article (pdf)
August 27, 2015 Industry Forum Blog It is a common misconception that Mistake Proofing includes any device that simply reduces the possibility of errors. To help us understand the difference in the principles concerned I am going to use two holiday snaps from my favourite steam railway. The first is one of the most unusual signs I think you will find at any level crossing. Using a standard warning triangle with an imaginative diagram of a crashing cyclist and two languages, it is designed to warn riders that the up coming rails are hazardous. The second, using colour and symbols, shows the safe route to be taken to avoid becoming stuck in the rails on the crossing. Do they prevent cyclists risking personal injury and damaged equipment? Surprisingly no! Despite ongoing additions to the warnings, some cyclists either don’t understand or choose to not follow the visual instructions. This situation is not unique to the railway. In fact any situation where a process can be performed incorrectly is open to improvement. Manufacturing, medical care and information based processes can all benefit from understanding and implementing Visual Management and Mistake Proofing techniques. Visual Management Is the application of visual signs, prompts or indicators in order to: Prevent abnormalities occurring by promoting the correct action at the right time Indicate immediately if an abnormality does occur Monitor performance i.e. what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen Good visual management needs no interpretation and immediately provokes the correct reaction The best visual management systems use features such as lights, symbols and standard colour coding. These features, along with optimal positioning, reduce the amount of time it takes a person to correctly interpret what is meant. All of these good features are present in the railway crossing example, so why doesn’t it work all the time? To understand we need to look at the principles behind Mistake Proofing. Mistake Proofing The ultimate goal of Mistake Proofing is to eliminate the wastes associated with errors. Time, money and resources are wasted wherever errors are allowed to occur and result in defects. (See Shingo’s work). In our rail crossing example the cyclist has made a process error. He has not followed the procedure indicated by the visual signs and markings. The resulting defect is the bike trapped in the rails. The rider wastes their own time and money getting free and making repairs as well as passenger time if they delay the train. Errors must be discovered and eliminated before the opportunity for them to become defects occurs. This is done using a Mistake Proofing device. These either: Prevent an error being made Detect when an error has occurred as early as possible and feedback into the system to prevent further errors, or correct the error before it becomes a defect A comparison of the two Visual Management, often used with 5S and Standardised Work, minimises interpretation, helps ensure consistency and eases completion of a process. Although Mistake Proofing draws heavily on the techniques of Visual Management, it actually eliminates interpretation and the reliance on familiarity. This eliminates the risk of error. So the ultimate solution is to design your process, or product, to eliminate the sources of error. What next at the level crossing? A prevention device to eliminate the gap between rail and tarmac can be bought. Ultimately the cost of any Mistake Proofing device must be weighed against the cost of the defects. Think about what processes you need to improve and whether you need Visual Management or Mistake Proofing.
August 19, 2015 Industry Forum Blog One of the top tips to help you to select the best CMMS system for your business is to establish why you need a maintenance system and what you want from it. The idea is to be prepared before you go and talk to potential providers. To help get you started this blog lists some of the outputs you may want to consider. It then looks at the inputs required to get them. To simplify this I have broken down the workings of a CMMS into a diagram using the process model as a framework. On the right are the outputs or functions of the system, the things you want it to give you. On the left are the inputs the system requires to give you those outputs. The box at the top of the diagram represents the method by which the system operates; this is determined by the rules and analysis functions the software provider builds in. At the bottom we can see an “improvement loop”. Certain outputs of the CMMS need to be fed back in to the input side as parameters change. Lessons learned and updates to schedules as a result of Planned Maintenance improving the equipment, are just two examples. Outputs and functions The 11 outputs and functions shown in the diagram are really category titles. Each one of these comprises a number of detailed items. A more thorough list can be found here. While some of the outputs are really just retrieval of existing documents the clever part of the CMMS generates schedules for maintenance activities, conducts analysis on all the information collected and produces reports and forecasts to support decision making. It’s important to decide what functions you want for your business before you investigate what is on the market. Answer the question “Why do we need it?” Use the detailed list to start a discussion with your team, but be selective. Don’t be dazzled by the amazing functionality described by the provider if it’s really not what you need. Remember data and information that isn’t used is just expensive wallpaper. Inputs CMMSs draw on a variety of data held in different databases. These are shown as the inputs on the right hand side of the diagram. An expanded list of these 7 categories can be found here. Ideally the system you chose should integrate with the existing software and process control systems already used in your plant e.g. planning, asset management, parts inventory, parts location, purchasing, costing and escalation rules etc. When you go shopping for your CMMS have a list of what systems you need it to integrate with. The future Over time you will need to expand your CMMS and make improvements to it as you review its ongoing use. Before you buy make sure the supplier can demonstrate that the system can be developed. If you have any specific questions or suggestions about the list let me know.
