Tools of the Trade

It never ceases to amaze me, how companies approach solving their manufacturing problems without using the right tools. Critical to developing and maintaining your manufacturing to perform at world-class standards is, how we look at the problem itself and the approach we take to solving problems.

When I sit in a meeting to solve a manufacturing problem and listen to what is being done to address it, I expect to see an overall graph depicting the indices having the problem. Then, I would want to see a breakdown of the issues associated with the bad indices in a Pareto chart of the defects. Lastly, I would look for action plans based on the Pareto chart to address the specific corrective actions. In the actions, I expect to see not only who is going to do what and when, but also what impact will the action have on the Pareto chart and the overall indices. I am never surprised to see that not only do managers not use Pareto charts to further breakdown the problem, but also they fail to ask when the actions will be complete, not to mention what the impact will be. Without understanding what affects the action will have, there is no way to understand how to prioritize the actions or if they will even have an impact.

Using this simple process of a 3 panel slide we can show 1) the problem, 2) what is the makeup of the problem in a Pareto chart and, 3) actions to be done by who and when, and what the impact to the problem will be.

Once we understand the problem, we can then apply the projected impacts to the chart in the form of our improvement forecast on the overall indices graph and track our progresst. This is an excellent way to keep your group on track with real fixes that have a positive impact on your problem and to communicate within your group and management describing how and when you plan to fix a problem and the expected results.

If you wish more details on the subject, please don't hesitate to contact me.