8
Process Variables that Define Success on the Factory Floor
8.1 Conditions for Manufacturing the Product
The product finally left the manufacturing plant, making its journey to the customer. The work that went into making the product as it leaves production embodies many months of design, engineering, customers surveys, marketing research, etc. Once the customer receives the product, it hopefully meets their needs and, in the end, it is the customer who will be the ultimate arbiter to know how well it performed. Any deviation from their expectations will affect their opinion, positively or negatively (recall the Kano model, Chapter 2).
The manufacturing plant is comprised by two groups: the physical environment and the work environment. The physical environment is about the equipment and infrastructure of the plant where the work environment is the human factor or soft skills. If the physical environment is a reflection of technology, what is the work environment a reflection of? Ponder that thought for a moment. How does your company balance the work environment with the physical environment? Based on my observations, the work environment is a reflection of several aspects: management, connection with our customer, and relationship with our employees. Let’s expand on these.
8.2 Are We Winning or Are We Losing Today?
Since we are talking about manufacturing, do our manufacturing employees know how well we are performing today? Consider the following two scenarios. Each scenario highlights how a factory employee defines their performance.
Scenario one: I walk to the warehouse and see one of our employees on a fork truck. He’s loading a pallet of product on a truck for a customer. I shout to him, “Hey, are we winning or are we losing today?” He smiles, gives me a thumb up saying, “We’re winning today, we’re at 98%!” I nod and smile, knowing that 98% of the orders are fulfilled completely and shipped on time.
Scenario two: I walk to the warehouse and see one of our employees on a fork truck. He’s loading a pallet of product on a truck for a customer. I shout to him, “Hey, are we winning or are we losing today?” He looks befuddled, shrugging his shoulders, saying, “I don’t know. I just work here.” The fork truck driver only understands the product needs to be loaded on the truck for the customer. Nothing more. He is not interested in knowing if the company is winning or losing; he just wants to make it through the day.
In the first scenario, the fork truck driver knows his performance metric and what he is doing is important to the customer; he not only knows things are right qualitatively but he also knows it quantitatively. We are doing it 98% correct and that event captures the essence of this book’s subtitle: Hearing the Voice of the Customer on the Factory Floor. As described in scenario one, this employee is listening and knowing how to measure what is important to the customer, even if he will never interact with the customer directly. Ninety-eight percent is our key metric of success. Recall how similar it is to what we learned in Chapter 3. Back then, the ultimate metric of success for our customer was mileage, and it was a value that meant so much to them; they used it as an incentive. The similarity here is that 98% (complete order and shipped on time) provides pride, success, and ultimately customer satisfaction. If you don’t measure, how do you know if you are winning or losing?
8.2.1 Details Matter
In the previous section, we elaborated about metrics and how well employees are engaged with the product they provide to the customer. Here, we will expand on the soft skills, the work environment. I will define and expand on this topic by using the following narrative. Based on a first-hand experience from a business associate, the following incidence forever changed my view of the relationship of management and manufacturing employees.
Vincent, an experienced mechanical engineer, was invited to a production facility to inspect the company’s latest installation of coating technology. The industrial complex spanned several acres. Accompanied by the plant manager and lead engineer, Vincent toured the plant. He looked with detail on how the product traveled from unit operation to unit operation. By having multiple shadow boards and charts throughout the plant, it was apparent that Lean concepts were applied. The workstations followed 5s principles (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain). Here and there, he did notice a few missing tools on the shadow boards; however, it didn’t diminish the spirit of following Lean principles. Floors were marked to indicate where items should be placed and walkways clearly visible. Overall the factory floor was clean. About half way through the tour, Vincent asked to use the bathroom. The plant manager says, “We are far from the front office.” Vincent replied that it would be okay for him to use the one right here, where the plant personnel goes. The two plant leaders looked at each other in disbelief and shrugged their shoulders and pointed to Vincent where to go. When Vincent went through the doorway, he passed through the locker rooms and right next to it was the bathroom. He had a sinking feeling going through those rooms. It seemed to him that he entered into another world, leaving behind the clean Lean environment he observed on the factory floor. Vincent stumbled through dingy rooms that were dimly lit, a few light fixtures hung empty, and fluorescent tubes buzzed, begging to be changed. The walls were filthy, the floors were sticky, and debris from many months accumulated in the corners. It’s shameful to allow any person to go into these premises. After Vincent returned to the factory floor, he couldn’t believe how can the plant manager allow this to happen. It occurred to him that it is a reflection of the management! It is a reflection of the front office, and ultimately a reflection of the company, representing how they view and treat their employees. Vincent pondered. What kind of products come out of the factory floor? Do those production plant employees have pride making a high-quality product for their customer? He didn’t think so. Hence, it was very difficult for him to focus and to continue the rest of the tour with a straight face.
This amazing story changed my entire perspective of how to treat employees. If the factory floor bathroom is not good enough for me to use, it is not good enough for anyone else. Change it! 5s it! It takes the concepts of Lean principles to the next level.
8.3 Define Process Variables
Selecting Process Variables (PVs) can be overwhelming since there are so many measurements to take throughout the plant. We can measure just about anything in the production factory. To sort and identify the critical few, it can be done by a sub-team from engineering and R&D. These two departments can provide different perspectives. The research person will give weight on the principles of science and technology and the engineer will look at it from a practical and feasible approach. These viewpoints can be captured by brainstorming, organizing, and Pareto charting the most important ideas. The process of capturing these concepts has been described in detail in Chapter 2 when we looked at Value Proposition. Figure 8.1 highlights the steps needed to discover the critical few PVs.
FIGURE 8.1
How to identify the critical few by using brainstorming.
Returning to our example of Liquid Paint Specialists, we went through the discovery and selection process by using brainstorming. The team broke down the manufacturing plant in different regions to define key areas of importance that may affect the making of paint. In addition, we involved experts from manufacturing, R&D, and engineering. The top four processes that we selected were raw materials (RMs), reactor, cooldown tank, and shipping.
Now let’s define in more detail these four areas to determine the key PVs for each. Turning to the first selected area, RMs are added into the process in two forms: one is automatic, and the other is manual. The automated feeds are injected directly into the reactor. The manual added raws are pre-weighed and placed next to the reactor, so it can be added when needed. The PVs of interest for these RMs are target weight and correct ingredients.
The next area is the reactor which is the most vital unit operation of the manufacturing plant. It has the most amount of process control and instrumentation. Determining those critical few key PVs was a challenge since so many are available in this part of the process. The team settled with the following three variables: reactor temperature, reaction time, and agitator speed.
The third plant area was the cooldown tank. The cooldown tank helps quench the product made from the reactor; it stops the reaction from further advancement. This unit operation is all about taking heat away from the liquid product. Here the two key PVs selected are cooldown tank temperature and agitator speed.
The last area and most important to the customer is shipping. This is the last step before the product leaves our production facility and it is what the customer will experience. The product(s) must be shipped correctly to them and the order must contain all the items that they requested. The appropriate metric from production will be a complete order and shipped on time. Remember earlier, the smiling fork truck driver saying we are winning today! He knew that 98% was a reflection about this metric.
Consider the following analogy. Instead of making paint, let’s bake a cake. The RMs are the cake ingredients. The reactor is the kitchen oven. Cooldown is the room temperature. Shipping is equivalent of making the cake on time and transporting it to the event. Each PV is important and will predict that a cake will fulfill the expectations of the guests. Since these variables predict whether the outcome is acceptable or not, all chosen PVs are considered leading indicators.
All PVs for Liquid Paint Specialists are summarized in Table 8.1 with the desired ranges for each one. These PVs will be combined with the Quality Control metrics from House of Quality 2 (HOQ2). The last step before moving into building House of Quality 3 (HOQ3), which we will do next in Chapter 9.
PVs Metric |
Specification |
Indicator Type |
Manually added RMs |
Target amount and type (lb) |
Leading |
Automatically added RMs |
Target amount and type (lb) |
Leading |
Reactor temperature |
255–285°F |
Leading |
Reaction time in reactor |
110–130 minutes |
Leading |
Reactor agitator speed |
45 rpm |
Leading |
Cooldown tank temperature |
Cool to below 80°F |
Leading |
Cooldown tank agitator speed |
85 rpm |
Leading |
Complete order and shipped on time |
>95% |
Leading |