Using Shift Work Solutions to Improve Your Lean Manufacturing Operations
Using Shift Work Solutions to Improve Your Lean Manufacturing Operations
24-Hour Fitness for that. We’re talking about making your company lean, as in lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, process reengineering, and so on.
More and more companies are embarking on the lean journey. And why shouldn’t they? The potential benefits are huge, including major leaps in quality, productivity, and delivery performance and to improvements in employee health, safety, and morale as well. Best of all, these benefits go right to the bottom line.
If you haven’t already committed to becoming lean, you might want to think about the potential benefits. Or imagine if your competitors were able to cut their lead times, reduce defects, increase productivity every year without capital investments, and reduce their total product cost. They would have a significant advantage over your firm. It would be risky to ignore this possibility.
When companies begin implementing lean manufacturing principles, they often overlook the possibility of using customized shift work solutions to support or enhance their efforts. Shift work solutions can improve lean manufacturing systems in the following ways:
* Match flows on the shop floor with customized shift schedules that efficiently balance labor resources between production stations.
* Respond to changing customer demands with shift schedules that have the ability to flex up and down efficiently and effectively.
* Create training opportunities for teaching lean manufacturing principles and cross-training employees.
* Make preventative maintenance part of the schedule, and match maintenance resources to the maintenance workload.
Implementing the right shift schedule can prove to be a leap forward in the continuous improvement process. In particular, a 5-day operation can significantly improve just about every aspect of lean by simply converting to a 7-day schedule.
Some managers avoid schedules that include weekend work. This is mostly due to an anticipated adverse reaction from the workforce. The idea that a 7-day schedule is unacceptable to a workforce is outdated. Today’s shift schedules can offer more flexibility, pay and time off while still covering all of the hours in a week.
The intent of this article is to point out how a 7-day schedule will benefit a lean operation.
Relieve Bottlenecks
A bottleneck, or chokepoint, is the limiting factor in the speed of a process. Continuous improvement process usually deals with this phenomenon using 3 steps:
• Identify the bottleneck
• Eliminate the bottleneck
• Identify the next bottleneck
It’s the second step in this process that represents the biggest challenge. Eliminating a bottleneck may call for capital investment. A less expensive alternative is to run the bottleneck area for more hours than the rest of the facility.
For example, a company has seven lines that it runs for five days every week. Each of the lines is fed to a downstream process that is limited, by the bottleneck, to six lines of processing capacity per day. This means that every day the bottleneck falls behind the equivalent of one line of output for one day. By Friday night, the lines are done producing for the week. Meanwhile, the bottleneck has a backlog of five line-days worth of production. The result is:
• A stockpile of product that is not having value being added = Waste.
• Quality problems due to higher W.I.P. and slower recognition of flaws.
• Higher costs associated with higher inventory.
• Slower responsiveness to changes in orders. You cannot change what you have already produced and accumulated upstream of the bottleneck.
Now consider a similar plant with the same production requirements. However, this plant does not run all seven lines for five days. Instead, it runs five lines for seven days. In the end, both methods produce 35 line-days of work per week.
By running fewer lines for more days, the bottleneck has disappeared. What was a limiting factor now represents excess capacity. The downstream process can handle up to six lines of input a day and, in this example, it only has to process five. The upstream backlog has been eliminated. W.I.P. has been reduced. Customer responsiveness has improved. Quality improves. Carrying costs are reduced.
Reduce Cycle Times
One goal of continuous improvement is to reduce cycle time, the amount of time between starting work on a unit and completing the work on that same unit. Some companies will take great efforts to reduce cycle times. Then on Friday night, they shut down the plant and turn out the lights. All of the work in progress at that time will sit idle until the plant starts up again on Monday morning (56 hours later). Meanwhile, the cycle time clock continues to tick.
There is a tremendous amount of “wait time” generated by simply shutting down for the weekend. There are large production “ramps” that proceed and follow each shut down. A process that is well underway will typically have W.I.P. throughout.
A shutdown at the end of the week may mean running all of the lines empty. This has the following impact:
• Typically, everyone goes home at the same time. This implies that workers at the start of the process become idle as their process is emptied out.
• Break-downs or other, unanticipated problems can throw off a schedule designed to empty the line at a precise point in time (usually targeted for the end of a shift.)
• On Friday, raw material is prestaged for Monday, starting the cycle time clock just before the plant goes idle for 2 days.
• Monday start-up will be slow. No final product is produced until the line has completely filled back up.
Reduce W.I.P.
Most companies will avoid a 7-day schedule if they think they can reach all of the production targets with a 5-day production week. It simply does not sound right to reduce production on a daily basis so it will take seven days to meet customer demands. In reality, there are several reasons for doing this: fewer bottlenecks, improved customer responsiveness, lower inventories and reduced W.I.P. The amount of W.I.P. is a good measure of how lean you are actually running. Less W.I.P. means less inventory, less waiting between processes and faster responses to quality problems.
Not all operations are capable of making this change in production rate. For those that can, the result is a more than 28% reduction in W.I.P.
Reduce Warehouse Inventories
One of the signals in a pull production system comes from the final goods inventory. Once inventories drop below a certain level, more product is manufactured. In a 5-day production process, the inventory level expected for Monday morning must be achieved by the end of the workday on Friday. The result is a warehouse filled with product that is having no value added to it. This product is being held for two days out of every seven in this condition. This is the same as saying that 28% of the time, you will be carrying a full inventory of finished product with no return on the investment.
With a 7-day production system, you will be producing over the weekend. The result is that inventories going into the weekend can be lowered.
Let’s assume that a 5-day operation was producing 21 units per day so that the total weekly production was 105 units (5 * 21 = 105). Let’s also assume that the required inventory at the start of each week was 100 units. To achieve that, there would have to be 100 units in the warehouse at the end of every Friday...ready and waiting for the start of week. The average end of day inventory would be 100 units.
With a 7-day operation, the same volume could be produced at only 15 units per day (7 * 15 = 105). Since production would continue through the weekend, the end of day inventories could drop below 100 units. In this case, the average end of day inventory would be 85 units.
This represents a 15% reduction in the average volume of finished goods in stock. It is worth noting that companies that produce on the weekend frequently begin to ship on the weekend as well. This will have an even greater impact on lowering inventories.
Improve Customer Responsiveness
An order comes in and is immediately scheduled for completion during the next production shift. This seems pretty responsive unless the order came in on Friday afternoon. For a 5-day operation, this translates into a 2-day wait before anyone starts to fill the order. No one is around on the weekend to do any work.
With a 7-day operation, orders are received and processed without regard to the day of the week. Every day is just like the next. There is no need to schedule around a weekend. That Friday night order will be ready for shipment on Saturday.
Using Shift Work Solutions to Improve Your Lean Manufacturing Operations - To learn more about this author, visit Bruce Oliver's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
Want to become really lean? Not you personally. There’s always Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and
24-Hour Fitness for that. We’re talking about making your company lean, as in lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, process reengineering, and so on.
More and more companies are embarking on the lean journey. And why shouldn’t they? The potential benefits are huge, including major leaps in quality, productivity, and delivery performance and to improvements in employee health, safety, and morale as well. Best of all, these benefits go right to the bottom line.
If you haven’t already committed to becoming lean, you might want to think about the potential benefits. Or imagine if your competitors were able to cut their lead times, reduce defects, increase productivity every year without capital investments, and reduce their total product cost. They would have a significant advantage over your firm. It would be risky to ignore this possibility.
When companies begin implementing lean manufacturing principles, they often overlook the possibility of using customized shift work solutions to support or enhance their efforts. Shift work solutions can improve lean manufacturing systems in the following ways:
* Match flows on the shop floor with customized shift schedules that efficiently balance labor resources between production stations.
* Respond to changing customer demands with shift schedules that have the ability to flex up and down efficiently and effectively.
* Create training opportunities for teaching lean manufacturing principles and cross-training employees.
* Make preventative maintenance part of the schedule, and match maintenance resources to the maintenance workload.
Implementing the right shift schedule can prove to be a leap forward in the continuous improvement process. In particular, a 5-day operation can significantly improve just about every aspect of lean by simply converting to a 7-day schedule.
Some managers avoid schedules that include weekend work. This is mostly due to an anticipated adverse reaction from the workforce. The idea that a 7-day schedule is unacceptable to a workforce is outdated. Today’s shift schedules can offer more flexibility, pay and time off while still covering all of the hours in a week.
The intent of this article is to point out how a 7-day schedule will benefit a lean operation.
Relieve Bottlenecks
A bottleneck, or chokepoint, is the limiting factor in the speed of a process. Continuous improvement process usually deals with this phenomenon using 3 steps:
• Identify the bottleneck
• Eliminate the bottleneck
• Identify the next bottleneck
It’s the second step in this process that represents the biggest challenge. Eliminating a bottleneck may call for capital investment. A less expensive alternative is to run the bottleneck area for more hours than the rest of the facility.
For example, a company has seven lines that it runs for five days every week. Each of the lines is fed to a downstream process that is limited, by the bottleneck, to six lines of processing capacity per day. This means that every day the bottleneck falls behind the equivalent of one line of output for one day. By Friday night, the lines are done producing for the week. Meanwhile, the bottleneck has a backlog of five line-days worth of production. The result is:
• A stockpile of product that is not having value being added = Waste.
• Quality problems due to higher W.I.P. and slower recognition of flaws.
• Higher costs associated with higher inventory.
• Slower responsiveness to changes in orders. You cannot change what you have already produced and accumulated upstream of the bottleneck.
Now consider a similar plant with the same production requirements. However, this plant does not run all seven lines for five days. Instead, it runs five lines for seven days. In the end, both methods produce 35 line-days of work per week.
By running fewer lines for more days, the bottleneck has disappeared. What was a limiting factor now represents excess capacity. The downstream process can handle up to six lines of input a day and, in this example, it only has to process five. The upstream backlog has been eliminated. W.I.P. has been reduced. Customer responsiveness has improved. Quality improves. Carrying costs are reduced.
Reduce Cycle Times
One goal of continuous improvement is to reduce cycle time, the amount of time between starting work on a unit and completing the work on that same unit. Some companies will take great efforts to reduce cycle times. Then on Friday night, they shut down the plant and turn out the lights. All of the work in progress at that time will sit idle until the plant starts up again on Monday morning (56 hours later). Meanwhile, the cycle time clock continues to tick.
There is a tremendous amount of “wait time” generated by simply shutting down for the weekend. There are large production “ramps” that proceed and follow each shut down. A process that is well underway will typically have W.I.P. throughout.
A shutdown at the end of the week may mean running all of the lines empty. This has the following impact:
• Typically, everyone goes home at the same time. This implies that workers at the start of the process become idle as their process is emptied out.
• Break-downs or other, unanticipated problems can throw off a schedule designed to empty the line at a precise point in time (usually targeted for the end of a shift.)
• On Friday, raw material is prestaged for Monday, starting the cycle time clock just before the plant goes idle for 2 days.
• Monday start-up will be slow. No final product is produced until the line has completely filled back up.
Reduce W.I.P.
Most companies will avoid a 7-day schedule if they think they can reach all of the production targets with a 5-day production week. It simply does not sound right to reduce production on a daily basis so it will take seven days to meet customer demands. In reality, there are several reasons for doing this: fewer bottlenecks, improved customer responsiveness, lower inventories and reduced W.I.P. The amount of W.I.P. is a good measure of how lean you are actually running. Less W.I.P. means less inventory, less waiting between processes and faster responses to quality problems.
Not all operations are capable of making this change in production rate. For those that can, the result is a more than 28% reduction in W.I.P.
Reduce Warehouse Inventories
One of the signals in a pull production system comes from the final goods inventory. Once inventories drop below a certain level, more product is manufactured. In a 5-day production process, the inventory level expected for Monday morning must be achieved by the end of the workday on Friday. The result is a warehouse filled with product that is having no value added to it. This product is being held for two days out of every seven in this condition. This is the same as saying that 28% of the time, you will be carrying a full inventory of finished product with no return on the investment.
With a 7-day production system, you will be producing over the weekend. The result is that inventories going into the weekend can be lowered.
Let’s assume that a 5-day operation was producing 21 units per day so that the total weekly production was 105 units (5 * 21 = 105). Let’s also assume that the required inventory at the start of each week was 100 units. To achieve that, there would have to be 100 units in the warehouse at the end of every Friday...ready and waiting for the start of week. The average end of day inventory would be 100 units.
With a 7-day operation, the same volume could be produced at only 15 units per day (7 * 15 = 105). Since production would continue through the weekend, the end of day inventories could drop below 100 units. In this case, the average end of day inventory would be 85 units.
This represents a 15% reduction in the average volume of finished goods in stock. It is worth noting that companies that produce on the weekend frequently begin to ship on the weekend as well. This will have an even greater impact on lowering inventories.
Improve Customer Responsiveness
An order comes in and is immediately scheduled for completion during the next production shift. This seems pretty responsive unless the order came in on Friday afternoon. For a 5-day operation, this translates into a 2-day wait before anyone starts to fill the order. No one is around on the weekend to do any work.
With a 7-day operation, orders are received and processed without regard to the day of the week. Every day is just like the next. There is no need to schedule around a weekend. That Friday night order will be ready for shipment on Saturday.
Using Shift Work Solutions to Improve Your Lean Manufacturing Operations - To learn more about this author, visit Bruce Oliver's Website.
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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