While employees have brought the workshops back to life after the vacations, it’s time to make good collective resolutions. The “collective” involves all the employees in a plant. Good resolutions will be “best-practices”. Good resolutions will become the “best-practices”. They depend on the sector of activity, but are applicable to all companies.
Good resolutions that suit your company
According to the Committee of French Automobile Manufacturers (CCFA) and its figures published on January 1st, 2021, the automobile market declined by 25.5% in 2020. The main objective of the equipment manufacturers and other suppliers of these automotive giants will be to save on expenses. There are dozens of ways to save money, the best are part of Lean Management. The most efficient ones require creativity and innovation.
The use of Poka-Yoke in assembly for example can be very valuable. What is Poka-Yoke ? Poka-Yoke are a way to prevent mistakes. They can be alert or operational. For example, a stop on a drill press is a working Poka-Yoke because it prevents drilling too deep and makes human error impossible.
The use of Poka-Yoke on workstations reduces the number of checks and promotes good parts the first time. It aims to protect against recurring or one-off defects, resulting from the work of a human being by bringing the error rate to 0%. It is also a means of avoiding the risk of accidents. The installation of Poka-Yoke in your workshop will not be done without a strong message beforehand. It is necessary to show that it is a solution and not a constraint to motivate all employees. It should not be forgotten that very often the actors in the field know how to improve things without realizing it. You just have to keep listening.
Listening is a resolution full of common sense. It may be obvious to some, but given the constraints brought about by the health crisis, it can be difficult to maintain dialogue. Indeed, some employees have been teleworking for months. We bet on their autonomy and it is most of the time a success, as long as we keep listening! For those on the shop floor, good ideas come from the field and a listened-to employee is grateful, in addition to sharing his or her knowledge. These are three good reasons to stay tuned to your employees.
Beyond listening, the employee’s well-being also depends on the warm atmosphere. At the moment, it can be difficult for employees with the slowdown in the lines, for example, to keep smile on their face. The time available can be put to good use by organizing seminars or moments of sharing. Try to see the glass half full with your employees will allow you to take advantage of difficult situations. Beware, it is not possible to force everyone to smile.
We’ve talked about the automobile, but it’s not for everyone. In the pharmaceutical and paramedical industries, on the other hand, demand is stronger than supply. The lines are running at full capacity, and the end-of-year vacations were short. One question arises, however: Are the machines really running at full capacity? A good resolution would be to look at the productivity of your equipment.
The best way to know how to measure performance is the OEE (check out our article on OEE here) The Overall Equipment Effectiveness allows you to see all the dimensions of a machine’s performance. Availability, Performance and Quality will no longer hold any secrets for you. Once again, for the deployment of such a tool, it is essential to rely on your operators in the shop floor. Whether it is to find your bottleneck station or the least reliable one, you can count on your operators. They will be the main users. A first successful experience will enable you to carry out a simpler changeover policy to equip your machine park.
In addition to being efficient, it is nowadays essential to be informed in order to adapt. Demand evolves very quickly, as fast as our world. Of course, modifying production lines or retraining personnel requires time and investment, but if you respond to a request, it can help you get beneficits of it. If you move in the right direction, the results will follow. We talk about product, but adaptation is important in all areas without distinction, from manufacturing methods to management techniques.
After adding Poka-Yoke on your sensitive lines, or even in your offices; after you have listened to your teams and taken their opinions into account, all of this while betting on the performance of your equipment and adapting to today’s economic situation and changes in the world; all the reasons will come together to make sure you have an excellent year 2021.
All the TEEPTRAK team wishes you all the best for the year 2021, may it be prosperous and rich in success.