We help you to develop and implement shop floor management systems so as to introduce a new form of organization leading to a lasting process of improvement through the lower level of management.
The introduction of shop floor management takes place with the cooperation and schooling of your co-workers.
What is shop floor management?
Though thousands of western managers have gone on a pilgrimage to Japan to study the methods of the Toyota production system and have then introduced it into their factories, their success has been slight and brief. Why?
The main reasons are to be found in a misunderstanding of the Toyota production system (TPS). This misunderstanding dates back to the early 90s, when interest was kindled by the MIT study about car industries in Japan and the West. The Japanese methods and their interconnections were largely overlooked but the Kaizen system for creating a process of continual improvement with the involvement of all workers was soon known through many publications and emulated.
This led to brief improvements, mostly small, but resounding economic success was achieved only by the enterprises which examined their whole processes of production and reformed them according to the basic tenets of lean manufacturing as at Toyota. Enterprises relying on Kaizen often tended to relapse, since the reformation was unsystematic and lacked managerial support.
The enterprises which understood the techniques of TPS and which optimized their processes according to the analysis of the whole macro-value system, tended to lessen their costs notably for awhile, but after having introduced the method, they mostly neglected to develop the new production system, so often went back to the old one.
In effect they had not really understood that Toyota’s DNA is made up of more than a set of methods and has several facets:
- the ways and means visible to anyone going through its factories and easily transferred to other enterprises
- and the way in which, systematically initiated by the management, new methods can be continually created in an enterprise. This cannot be seen and usefully copied, since copying methods only perpetuates the status quo.
Toyota’s achievements are due to its staying on its toes. It has a system for continually generating new knowledge and thereby extending its outer limit.
At the start of the 90s many western enterprises happened to misunderstand the term ‘lean production’ and got rid of many levels of management, especially the lower. But this is Toyota’s strength, as is a notable nearness of the whole management to the shop floor.
In many cases this misunderstanding leads to a loss of shop floor managers and to others having the say, but this is not always in the interest of the enterprise. All too quickly the problem becomes chronic and leads to loss of hope, and all too often, in combination with other factors, thoughts turn to moving the enterprise abroad. The production potentials in German enterprises, compared to Toyota’s, are about 40-80%, which makes a hasty move abroad superfluous.
This kind of cost-cutting has become laughable, since the ratio of foremen to workers on Toyota’s lowest level of management is presently 1: 6-10. This is because a team-leader with an average of 8 co-workers can naturally be involved much more closely in the further development of his co-workers and can keep an eye on many functions otherwise seen to by special departments. In doing so, he can ensure that there is clearly less loss at interfaces and a dramatically swifter improvement in efficiency.
Here is a little insight into the tasks of a ‘hancho’ (the Japanese term for a group-leader, now known at Toyota as a team-leader). The extract is from an original work-description dealing with themes like quality, production and security:
Extract from the work task ‘production’:
- Determining the period of the process’s cycles and identifying bottlenecks
- Determining the line din the case of changes in quantity or rhythm
- Ensuring that each member of the team puts forward and implements 2 kaizen ideas per month
- Taking part in and supporting the preparation of group production meetings
- Supporting the group-leader in drawing plans up
- Updating process documentation to reflect on improvements of efficiency
- Creating standard worksheets
- Checking the team members’ processes daily
- Sampling whether co-workers are working up to standard
- Understanding the period of the cycle of utilities
- Recognizing and understanding the bottleneck processes in the process chain
- Paying attention to the andon signal, in case a co-worker has problems
All these points are standardized in detail and their daily application is accordingly structured. Hence the theme-block production is made up of 6 main tasks with 21 activities, quality of 6 main tasks with 18 activities, security of 6 main tasks with 18 activities and other things (to which belong maintenance, cost cutting and improvement of morale) of 3 main tasks and 12 activities.
It remains to be pointed out that none of these activities is left to be implemented intuitively. They are all subject to definite standards.
Moreover all activities are oriented mainly to the enterprise’s aims, which are annually expressed in terms of the shop floor aims (hoshin kanri) of the medium term (3 year) plan.
In view of this vast array of tasks, it becomes plain that managers with more co-workers to keep an eye on will not have time to pay due attention to all tasks and to further the training of all co-workers. Let us remember that we are not talking about some unspecified level of management but about the lowest level, made up in German enterprises of foremen or team-leaders. Plainly a lot has to be invested in these people before they can perform the role satisfactorily, so it can be said quite realistically of Toyota that the elite begins at the bottom.
But how can the limit be reached? The most important basis for reaching it is the standard, whereby the standard at any particular moment is the best way to do some work in terms of content, sequence, length and result. The respective standard procedure is the best possible for all workers, whether on an early or late shift, whether Bob in the USA or Takahashi in Japan. Without a standard it is impossible to draw a line between a wanted and unwanted state of affairs.
Unfortunately in recent years enterprises in the West have lost their awareness of the importance of standards. The co-worker is left to decide for himself how best to do his work and the management intervenes only in the event of problems.
Hence we once went to a big German car manufacturer and looked at 16 co-workers for two shifts, to see how they carried an alignment out. There turned out to be 15 different ways with a maximal time-variation of 200%.
To improve a performance significantly there has to be clearness about the procedure of work, so at Toyota the standards serve mainly to pinpoint problems. By definition they are makeshift and always being checked for their viability. A standard is practically a catalyser for improvements and is more or less the hypothesis that the chosen conditions lead to the best result.
A standard procedure is treated as an experiment for testing the hypothesis, which any snag serves to invalidate.
Measures taken for improving the results are then treated as a revised hypothesis or revised standard. This may sound rather scientific but is the key to an experimental culture in which assumptions are always being challenged for the sake of extending limits.
The potential for improvement is freed by management on the spot insofar as the team-leader looks at the procedure several times while it is being carried out by co-workers. He has been educated in techniques of improvement, so he tries to sense possible new measures, not by telling the co-worker to do the work this way or that but rather by using a special technique of questioning. This prompts the co-worker to think things over till finding an answer for himself.
This principle strongly recalls the one used by Socrates, who never offered pupils readymade answers but prompted them with questions like: “How do you know that your work’s result is optimal?”
These techniques are used by managers on the lowest level of production, but all managers have to begin their careers by working in production and familiarising themselves with the techniques. Later they use them in all areas, even in those with no direct bearing on production.
You may still believe that this approach works only in Japan or depends on the culture. This belief can be shown to be wrong by turning to many successful adaptations by western enterprises… Just get in touch with us...
