Enterprise resource planning software, known as (ERP) brought about one of the first revolutions in manufacturing efficiency. However, ERP does not cover those manual-intensive operations that take place on the plant-floor. The plant floor is riddled with inefficient practices that both waste time and money and slow down productivity.
In today’s tough market place, and with growing competition and reducing profit margins, it has become essential for businesses to improve their manufacturing processes and to widen the application of so called ‘lean principles’ to the plant floor. ERP has made some inroads into the area of manufacturing operations, including order management, inventory management, works scheduling, materials planning, cost control and reporting, but as ERP was not designed to address the needs of the plant-floor itself, it has not and cannot, answer the challenge of making the plant floor as efficient as needed.
With ERP not being able to cover the needs of manufacturing businesses they have been forced to introduce a number of ‘work arounds’ so that the essential data that flows to, from and around the shop-floor can be managed and processed. These include
– Mountains of (unnecessary) paperwork
– Manual processes Buy Products Directly From Manufacturers
– Excel Spreadsheets
– Ad-hoc (often inefficient), custom-built applications
These and workarounds like them are directly opposite to the integrated business system approach (that is ERP) and compromise all the benefits delivered by the lean manufacturing culture. This lack of integration between the ERP systems and the plant-floor causes a ‘disconnect’ that costs the business both time and money, and in extreme circumstances could lead to the loss of business too, as more efficient operators steal their trade by producing goods faster, if not cheaper.
Without a proper Manufacturing Execution Software system, information relating to production schedules and engineering changes are often communicated slowly to operators, which in turn results in delays and wasteful errors. Other the other hand, data flows back to management on paper, these forms having then to be read and most often then re-keyed into the ERP Industrial Engineering Tools system, with all the wasted time and potential for errors that this entails. The problems for business are also exacerbated by the fact that the managers of the business cannot see what is happening on the plant-floor in ‘real time’ thus making it difficult, if not impossible to react quickly to changing conditions and thus to identify potential problems.
The Cry of the Financial Controller
Financial controllers of many businesses have been heard to cry something like:- “We need to find ways to reduce direct and indirect manufacturing costs so that we can maximize profits”
There are two main ways to keep costs down and maximize profitability, these being to reduce the time spent on all non value added activities and the other to reduce material waste.
One way is to reduce the time spent by plant-floor operators and personnel in the supporting of the functions that manage the vast amounts of data required to support the manufacturing …
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Behaviour and Engagement of Employees – The Most Vital Ingredients Needed to Create a LEAN Business?
Organisations are realising that to implement Lean manufacturing principles across the board and sustain it for the future that behaviour and engagement of all employees needs to be addressed thoroughly and is a gradual process. Indeed this “below the water” element of the Lean iceberg is now becoming the most focused area of attention for senior level management, as CEO of Cogent Power, Marcel, stated that “to achieve waste elimination and continuous improvement, the organisation as a whole needs to have the attitude, the culture and capabilities at all levels to achieve continuous improvement and sustain itself for the future.”
Common concerns include questions centred on feelings such as “How long is it going to be before the workforce loses their Harvard Lean enthusiasm for lean? And “How do you get the buy in from staff when implementing lean principles may mean a cut in staff?
Indeed it is fair too suggest that the responsibility lies with the management team in place to ensure that all employees feel valued Best Industries To Start A Business 2019 and involved in process improvements. To do this sounds very simple but if the truth be known it happens at a very shallow level.
Creating this lean behaviour is not as simple as employing fresh people who portray lean behaviour. The first step is to examine the culture of the business, which is more often than not created by the values and actions of the senior management. Culture is based on beliefs, attitudes and priorities of its workforce. Lean can only be implemented with the right culture.
At the front end, Lean is thought of as the driver behind an increase in performance- productivity and profit. Getting the employees to buy into this change means a thorough understanding of people’s drivers and emotions is required. An atmosphere of inclusion is necessary as people not only need to be told of changes but informed as to why. This needs to be accurate and told simultaneously.
As well as communication being a vital element of engagement, training needs to be put in place and continued on a regular basis. With a structured appraisal process mixed in with their competence in the 7 Lean skills, (customer consciousness, enterprise thinking, adaptation, taking initiatives, innovation, collaboration and influence), employees behaviour and engagement are being reinforced by the processes and procedures of the company.
Behaviour and engagement are the true foundations of starting and maintaining a lean organisation. Get these fundamentals in place and the rest of the lean iceberg will fall into place.…