Frank Rzeznikiewicz

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Tag: lean manufacturing

September 1, 2022

Five S Implementation

The 5S initiative is one of the most difficult to accomplish in your lean journey. The efforts to sort, simplify, sweep, standardize and sustain are the backbone of lean. Many companies roll safety as the 6th S, but in reality that is a mistake. 5S is about the lean manufacturing of business. For businesses to treat the safety of employees on the same plane as lean is a critical mistake. In the hierarchy of business and employee needs, employee safety is the most critical and far more important than efficiency and is the baseline of the hierarchy. The emphasis on the 5S is overlooked and considered by many to have aspects that are optional and not necessary for productivity improvements. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sorting is necessary for several reasons. First a sorted facility reduces inventory waste, eliminate the use of un-standardized tools or parts, and eliminates confusion to employees who are at different training levels. It also increases usable space by the elimination of storage for unnecessary items, obsolete tooling, and duplicate materials. Having the correct tools visually noticeable in each workplace allows both the operators and supervisors to realize any shortages that may exist. If you look at effective assembly operations, tools are placed in the proper places before, after, and during production. Have you ever had the home project and did not return the hammer to the proper place at the end of a project? Then in a couple of months when the next project is started you floundered to find where you left that hammer. The same is said for the wrench on an assembly line. After the daily production is complete, if an operator leaves the wrench in an undesignated location, they will have trouble starting the next day’s production on time. Therefore, efficiencies are dwindled from their optimum. Communication between shifts and workers becomes more effective in a well sorted environment and much of the extraneous discussions and frustrations disappear as everything is where it should be located. Finally, a poorly sorted operation effects the quality of product. Tool substitutions are minimized as all the proper tools are always available to everyone. The application of any incorrect parts or subassemblies are eliminated.

Simplifying the operations are key to the lean process. This effort also reduces inventory as designers attempt to use common hardware that is readily on hand. This prevents special orders for unnecessary products. This also eliminates waste due to difficulty in using unique items and improves quality as options for misapplication become more limited. But the simplification goes further than design. It includes the arrangement of the workspace and encompasses shadow boxing tools and standardizing the best tools for the job. The development of simple jigs and fixtures improves the quality of product as a standard method of locating features is in place. Jigs can be designed with the same basics and mere detail changeovers accommodate mixed model production. As a manager, we should also drive the organization to the simplest functionality by reviewing each step of the operations with engineering, operations and quality concurrently. Do not merely accept the design from research and development as seldom is efficiency and productivity taken into account.

Sweep or shine is essential for several reasons. First and foremast is ensures a safer workplace. The cluttered workplace is one that is doomed for trips and falls. Clean and bright workplaces have a psychological effect on workers that is positive and is one where we are proud to employ ourselves. The lack of lighting can lead to poor morale and inefficient work. Shine can also assure that tools are in the proper condition for usage at all times. The lack of lighting also allows undetected visual defects and therefore the bright and shiny workplace is less apt to produce and ship nonconforming hardware. I painted all my machines white in a company. Initially, the thought of white machines that remove metal was frowned upon because it was not sustainable. As each machine showed a leak, the leak was fixed to prevent the need to repaint. That triggered an improved TPM program which reduced downtime by 21%.

The most difficult is the standardization of work. This effort integrates the sort, weep and shine and simplifying efforts. It ensures conditions do not deteriorate to the former state and facilitates the implementation of the aforementioned. The standardization of work ensures that work is performed the same way time after time and integrates an improved quality and predicable delivery plan. It is difficult to create the standardization of work and it is very time consuming. You must segment your workplace into sub-sections so that smaller successes can be declared and celebrated. It is essential that the format for the standardization is easy to implement and that any software you use is ready to use for its purpose. Do not use ad hoc programs as the documentation and implementation is difficult and strangling the organization with complicated programs will exhaust personnel. Eventually, your standard work will allow you to predict how many people are needed to attain takt time for work cells and will assist in allocation of resources necessary to attain customer commitments.

Making a habit of properly maintaining correct procedures and installing the discipline to regress requires that all personnel including management pay attention to detail. The consequences of not allowing employees to correct standard work when needed, to clean, sort, straighten the workplace, and allowing an environment of sustainment will deter any advancement of the lean systems your put in place. It will evolve a culture where employees will consider your journey as another program that went to the wayside and will make any revitalization of the effort more difficult.

February 7, 2020

The Journey Begins

The challenge of starting systemic productivity improvements in a facility and knowing where to start is not academically taught and is usually based on experience. Consultants my give you a program that it so large to implement that success is limited. When you decide that your company has used all the conventional methods to improve efficiency and productivity and they have “block and tackled” every avenue to increase outputs, what do you do? The answers are not simple but they all follow the same theme.

The first step is stop and look. Let the processes flow normally and look for two types of changes, systemic and points of production. The first type of change is systemic and you must form a three to five year plan and an initial plan. First observe the flow and identify evident systemic gaps. It could be a process, an element of production (i.e. safety, quality), a product flow, the placement of an order, or procurement. The second type of change is individual points of production changes. You must find three to four small areas of change that will be the example for the changes in the future. You must remember that you probably have not changed the culture of the facility and have not communicated well with your workforce. You need to pull ideas out of employee’s heads for understanding their efficiency roadblocks. These small areas of change are critical for changing the culture to one where employees will be your consultants. The quickness and sincerity of your responses to ideas they give you is critical. If you want to improve, you have a wealth of information in your workforce that will provide you success and them with a sense of accomplishment.

Form a plan that employs the overall systemic changes you want in the long term. Take that overall plan and divide it into smaller sequential system changes that will align your vision and your overall systemic change plan. These systemic changes must be ones that are smaller in nature when you begin your journey to change a company. They must be ones that will improve the processes but also ones that have minimal negative side effects within the workforce. You may want to relocate a department to increase flow. You may want to separate processes and remove production delays by segregating workflows to their proper elements.

The first changes you make must be reviewed with your leadership team to attain both consensus and comradely. After that has been accomplished, you must present your long-term systemic change plan and the initial changes to your entire population to explain how your vision and strategic plan align themselves. Remember to speak with anyone that may perceive your changes as affecting them negatively. The worst tactic is to present material to all your people at a group meeting and someone that is affected being advised at the same time. You need to assure that people are not being surprised and not feeling that you did not speak to them to get their inputs. They may not always agree but they will at least understand you motives and expectations. You can never over communicate. Once you have presented the material to all, act on it. Failure to do what you say will create a perception that management does not do what they say they are going to do.

Creating the correct change path is vital. You need to create a few small changes that will support the overall long-term plan. Remember that any huge change usually takes a long time and your employees are watching to see if things are really going to ascend to a better The challenge of starting systemic productivity improvements in a facility and knowing where to start is not academically taught and is usually based on experience. Consultants my give you a program that it so large to implement that success is limited. When you decide that your company has used all the conventional methods to improve efficiency and productivity and they have “block and tackled” every avenue to increase outputs, what do you do? The answers are not simple but they are all follow the same theme.

The first step is stop and look. Let the processes flow normally and look for two types of changes, systemic and points of production. The first type of change is systemic and you must form a three to five year plan and an initial plan. First observe the flow and identify evident systemic gaps. It could be a process, an element of production (i.e. safety, quality), a product flow, the placement of an order, or procurement. The second type of change is individual points of production changes. You must find three to four small areas of change that will be the example for the changes in the future. You must remember that you probably have not changed the culture of the facility and have not communicated well with your workforce. You need to pull ideas out of employee’s heads for understanding their efficiency roadblocks. These small areas of change are critical for changing the culture to one where employees will be your consultants. The quickness and sincerity of your responses to ideas they give you is critical. If you want to improve, you have a wealth of information in your workforce that will provide you success and them with a sense of accomplishment.

Form a plan that employs the overall systemic changes you want in the long term. Take that overall plan and divide it into smaller sequential system changes that will align your vision and your overall systemic change plan. These systemic changes must be ones that are smaller in nature when you begin your journey to change a company. They must be ones that will improve the processes but also ones that have minimal negative side effects within the workforce. You may want to relocate a department to increase flow. You may want to separate processes and remove production delays by segregating workflows to their proper elements.

The first changes you make must be reviewed with your leadership team to attain both consensus and comradely. After that has been accomplished, you must present your long-term systemic change plan and the initial changes to your entire population to explain how your vision and strategic plan align themselves. Remember to speak with anyone that may perceive your changes as affecting them negatively. The worst tactic is to present material to all your people at a group meeting and someone that is affected being advised at the same time. You need to assure that people are not being surprised and not feeling that you did not speak to them to get their inputs. They may not always agree but they will at least understand you motives and expectations. You can never over communicate. Once you have presented the material to all, act on it. Failure to do what you say will create a perception that management does not do what they say they are going to do.

Creating the correct change path is vital. You need to create a few small changes that will support the overall long-term plan. Remember that any huge change usually takes a long time and your employees are watching to see if things are really going to ascend to a better organization. Several small changes will involve more people and therefore can be more effective to promoting a culture change.

In the points of production changes, you must address a process improvement project for each major sector of your business. These should be the result of interviewing the people and finding out parts of their job that are troublesome and hindering productivity. They may not be what you think is of the utmost importance but they are the issues that concern your workforce. Accomplishing these is vital to your changing the overall business and a significant step in changing the culture of your organization.

You must remember that you have probably forced as much change through the organization that is possible by your powering the organization forward. You now must take a different tact. Embrace the workforce for ideas and act on them. Regard safety as not only a benefit to the people and company, but realize an unsafe environment will create inefficiencies. As you work down this strategic path you will enact your vision to actualization and display the correct atmosphere and culture.

Finally it is critical not to make this a one-time event. Continue this philosophy and continue to take small strides that will change the overall effectivity of the business. Embrace your workforce, communicate with them continually, and improve the business one step at a time. The time for larger strategic changes will come with time and may result in reorganization of the business. You will weave in all the elements of a lean environment such as value stream maps, kaizens, standard work and 5S in the ongoing change plans. The overall goal is to create a culture that self-actualizes itself to the best in the business sector.
organization. Several small changes will involve more people and therefore can be more effective to promoting a culture change.

In the points of production changes, you must address a process improvement project for each major sector of your business. These should be the result of interviewing the people and finding out parts of their job that are troublesome and hindering productivity. They may not be what you think is of the utmost importance but they are the issues that concern your workforce. Accomplishing these is vital to your changing the overall business and a significant step in changing the culture of your organization.

You must remember that you have probably forced as much change through the organization that is possible by your powering the organization forward. You now must take a different tact. Embrace the workforce for ideas and act on them. Regard safety as not only a benefit to the people and company, but realize an unsafe environment will create inefficiencies. As you work down this strategic path you will enact your vision to actualization and display the correct atmosphere and culture.

Finally it is critical not to make this a one-time event. Continue this philosophy and continue to take small strides that will change the overall effectivity of the business. Embrace your workforce, communicate with them continually, and improve the business one step at a time. The time for larger strategic changes will come with time and may result in reorganization of the business. You will weave in all the elements of a lean environment such as value stream maps, kaizens, standard work and 5S in the ongoing change plans. The overall goal is to create a culture that self-actualizes itself to the best in the business sector.

September 9, 2019

Standard Work Assures Consistency and Opportunities for Ever Evolving Improvement

The misconceptions of standard work throughout the consulting sector is staggering. Standard work is not merely written work instructions. Standard work is the application of the proper resources to the appropriate workload. It is the standard by which we can measure productivity and also allocate the proper resources to assure efficiency.

The simple portion of standard work is the visual written work instructions to all elements of the business. The instructions should assure that all personnel could complete the tasks with little or no training. While that is simplistic in nature and assumes there are no skill levels required for tasks, it is a goal that if not attainable can be closely assimilated. When we think of standard work instructions, we think of the operational ends of the business as it is a simple interpretation. For these work instructions, we should have step by step instructions stating the tools required, quality requirements necessary, critical features identified and visuals to assure interpretation is correct. However, the implementation goes greater than the operational end of the business. The application should include all interests including, procurement and the appropriate decision trees for a make /buy decision, financial reporting to assure consistency during attrition, management practices for capital ROI decisions and headcount allocations, sales with standards for meaningful profit margins, maintenance for continuous allocation of resources, quality for standardization of inspection standards, and many other elements that are necessary for the business. If these instructions rely on IT functions, screen shots should be part of the standard work.

As we assimilate the standards, we then need to look at our value stream maps to assure that the standard times for operations are level loaded through the production cycle. Once we have a level loaded value stream, we then can calculate the resources necessary for the volume increases and decreases. Our value stream should engulf more than a statement of operations and work tasks and should include the min/max of personnel and shift allocations, resources necessary to support those functions, and standards for operational efficiency. Finally, the value stream maps should then include a standard work contingency for each operational failure that can occur. Once those failure points are established, a risk level needs to be assigned to them. We can then prioritize the contingency plan development needs.

Standard work is ever evolving and is the backbone for predicable production and financial success. Implementation of standard work must grow with the evolving culture change to a leaner environment. The culture must understand that standardization does not threaten their job security as they define tasks, but allows them to spend their resources on creativity and strategic development. We must be patient with the evolution of standard work. If the workforce embraces the conceptual, we will actualize the benefits in a shorter time span.

September 19, 2016

As productivity rankings are released, the United State’s manufacturing sector appears to be gaining momentum

Globally, the U.S. continues to gain ground in the manufacturing sector. With the renewed capitalization of the industry, the renewed government interest in growing the sector, and the knowledge of lean manufacturing, the U.S. will continue to grow in this sector. The sector was once battered with old technology and excessive inventories that drove cost numbers to be uncompetitive with competing nations. There is a new generation of manufacturing that emphasizes standard work, quality, increased throughput, and lost cost that will capture the market. It is through the balance of low cost labor and the aforementioned with implementation of automation where is intelligent to automate that will make the U.S. a premier supplier of high technological production.