It’s hard to believe that we’re already at the end of the first quarter of 2022. How are you doing on goals? What changes have you made to drive towards them rapidly and with total focus? We’ve seen a huge increase in website traffic for our “how-to” guides on buying, implementing, and using a Manufacturing Execution System (MES). This signals to me continued growth in the market for using tools to get the information that manufacturers need more rapidly and make sustainable changes.
We’re taking a new look at these guides and putting out additional information to help you with the identification, selection, and implementation of a complete manufacturing toolset.
We believe that manufacturers of all sizes need the right information to take control of production. So many obstacles have been thrown at you over the last 2 years – supply chain breakdowns, worker availability, workforce numbers, business closures, country closures. If you haven’t considered buying a system to help with all of this, could this be the year?
We’re starting this series off with issues we see that signal larger production problems. This turns your exploration from theoretical benefits and functionality to real issues that you might be experiencing right now. Let’s talk non-used talent first. Non-used talent is when your team is either working in silos, shielded from information that would help them do their work, or when they are asked to do work that’s unnecessary. This last one’s tricky as it could be that they’re doing it at the wrong time, in the wrong order or wrong altogether.
Is your team doing extra work? Unplanned or even unnecessary work?
Do they work as a team, or do you find that the team is broken up into silos formed more out of personal relationships than primary manufacturing workflows?
Is information shared freely and without impediment? Does one team let another know that there are production issues? How? How quickly? And what do you do to solve the problem?
These are all key signs that you may have a problem with non-used talent. This is a constant issue for manufacturers. For the last 20 years or more, it has been more difficult to find new workers that want to enter manufacturing as a career path. The challenges of the last few years make this even worse.
No longer will people stay with you regardless of your systems and processes. Newer graduates (if you can lure them into manufacturing) crave the connection that a digital environment provides. In their off time, that connection might be to other people. In their roles at your factory, they want to know that you are giving them all the information they need to do their job quickly and efficiently and go home.
What tools are you giving them?
Connection - the morning huddle
Let’s start with the basics. Do you have a morning huddle or stand-up? In this age, you’d be crazy not to. Driving manufacturing productivity requires an all-team meeting. Manufacturing production is constantly in motion (you’ve heard us say this so many times) and without the daily meeting, your team is divided, siloed, even removed from each other.
Start it on time. End it on time. Cover the work to do today, challenges you have, open items. Need help? Ask us. We can show you the huddles that we use to run our own business.
Processes
Do you have written processes for your team to follow? If not, put some words on paper. Tell them how to do the work in the most efficient way possible. Provide them warnings, helpful tips, lists of the tools and materials they’ll need to do the work, and then help them with the schedule. These are all very important steps and too complex to cover in one session. We’ll talk about them one by one during our pieces on processing, handling, inventory, and motion.
It's best to use a tool to do this so you know the transmission of the information is reliable and, maybe more importantly, repeatable. Don’t build the wheel each time. You might think that this could be the Microsoft suite you currently have access to, but we hope to show you how systems like this fail to deliver what you really need. And whether you love our platform or someone else’s, a tool made for manufacturing is really the way to go.
Systems
Manufacturing systems are different than any other platform that’s out there. The simple fact of the work movement makes it impossible for an ERP or other platform to handle the unique issues that you face daily. The challenge of a routing in motion is insurmountable for a system that does invoicing. Even if it has a manufacturing component, the best it’s going to give you is a list of the work to do and maybe a list of the open items, but it will never solve real-time problems for you during production.
Manufacturing software systems plan your work, prioritize and schedule it, move it and even troubleshoot and track it. These systems move for and with you. If they have the right combination of tools, they can even provide complete production control.
If you don’t have manufacturing software already, look at the systems that you are providing your team. Do you give them a place to put their notes/feedback? What happens to the measurements they make and the data that you need them to collect in the process of doing their work? Do you keep it? Use it? Can you find it?
Silos are a key symptom. It’s hard to hide a silo and the issues it causes are generally obvious and repetitive. How do you recognize one?
Information that flows in silos can go up and down the chain, but rarely across. Unless you’ve organized your team into very specific groupings of all the roles it requires for you to complete your work, you will inevitably miss someone in this communication chain. You will also waste valuable time. Perhaps the most awful thing about siloed information on the shop floor is that it looks like things are moving and resolving themselves. On the surface, it appears that someone is doing something about the problem. But, by the time the problems are reported outside that group, it’s too late to do anything meaningful about it and meet your production schedule.
Wasted Time
Next, we’ll tackle wasted time in manufacturing. We’ll end this series with a step-by-step guide on how to buy a system that we’ll build over time. Need that information faster? Engage with us to talk about assessing or mapping your systems and processes. We’re only an email away, info@cimx.com.
Contact CIMx Software to see how paperless manufacturing can improve production communication for you.