Sometimes intense resourcefulness plays spoilsport in the long run.

We have a dedicated team of highly resourceful people who look after production and assembly. They were used to getting things done to the extent that some parts if they needed rework before assembly were reworked immediately and assembled. These parts were at times even planned to be reworked just before assembly to save machine loading time.

This meant that we were still getting things assembled and dispatched as scheduled. Isn’t this good? well .. maybe!

The biggest problem here is they were hiding problems with the production process. During our weekly meetings we discuss those items which didn’t ship. So we never know why the part needed rework in the first place.

So we keep making the part incorrectly over and over again and the assembly guys keep correcting over and over again. How much money have we already lost over this?

We need the assembly guys to stop production the moment they see a problem. This way we can attack each problem minutely one by one.It’s the only way we can have a robust stable process!

Now we didn’t want the assembly guys to stop reworking the material and stop production just yet. The scheduling demands of a modern customer are far too many to let the flow stop.

We asked the assembly in-charge to maintain a list of such reworked items and then bring them out at the weekly meeting. We also defined in detail what rework is to remove any ambiguity.

Now we have resourcefulness working alongside process and with it continuous learning.

There is an update please see below.

We have a man in our machine shop. He has been working with this company for more than a decade. He began as a ‘helper‘; then graduated to work on the drilling machine and later in assembly. Now he is a staff member and is in charge of assembly.

He was promoted time and again in spite of other people being around because he was diligent as a worker. He took pride in his work. He was honest and a man of integrity.

His job now, is to collect materials and make them available for assembly. We call them collectively, Assembly Items. The items are scattered throughout the factory floor due to different processes and thus different machine work and thus different locations.

His job takes him hours just to collate one set. Imagine the productivity hours lost.

Collation of items should be imbibed into the process rather than have someone find and then collate it. Basically his job is redundant and is a useless activity. What we have done by promoting him is KILL his productivity. His job is a ‘pseudo job‘.

There are numerous such instances of productive people turned unproductive due to an un thoughtful promotion. In the above case if we decide to rectify the process and change the layout and in general make changes which will eliminate this pseudo job, his job will be rendered useless which is undesirable for such a worker.

This is a classic case where appreciation has become a bane for the incumbent.

update: There is a name for such phenomena, The Peter’s principle.

The principle holds that in a hierarchy members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain.

Peter’s Corollary states that “in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties” and adds that “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence”.

How to not forget where you kept your keys. How to not forget paying any particular bill.

Now this is what most people do,

They keep the keys in the same place everyday, some place easily in sight while on the move.

They either pay it as soon as the bill arrives or keep a particular day of the month for paying bills.

The first one is the most effective because it almost always works. The second one is contingent upon our disposition to do the earlier assigned work right away.

Almost always its the process which is at fault and not people!

It’s been seven months since i have moved back to Bombay. Fiscal 2007 has been one hell of a year so far.

The Small Yet Significant Hits

• We have our new office ready for production. It will seat three more people.
• We have a new manual Crane setup, it has already chopped off considerable cutting time of rods and pipes.
• We have a new rack which eases up the storage problem even if only by a infinitesimal margin. Need more work here.
• We had a meeting with our subcontractors at the beginning of the first quarter. These were mostly about Quality Improvements and reduction in double work and waste. Baby steps to a high quality product. The effect is there for all to see albeit with an undesirable side effect (Increased Inventory).
• A semi-finished system is in place with controls. Now we need more checks built in. We finally have dealt with Roles and Responsibilities, there is still much to be done on this front but we have a start! Tracking has been achieved to a large extent. We still want more transparency with the production file.
• And finally the one BIG HIT .. GROWTH!!!

Figures are Year On Year[YOY]

24%

Our growth in ‘07 since April to September as can be seen is 24%. I have crossed out the rest of the entries under the ‘07 column as they do not take into account actual production during the period.

The blue line tapers down from month 7 as there has been no production since September. (October figures are pending as of the time of writing this post.) Note that the rise in month 7(October) is due to poor performance in the corresponding month in ‘06 (previous year).

Also note the sharp dip in the beginning of the fiscal and compare it with the red and the green lines. Production has shown negative growth in those periods until finally picking up in the following months. This is due to abnormal growth witnessed in April for ‘06 and low base in ‘05.

We expect the production to pick up in second half though not at the same growth rate. This possible deceleration is due to the high production rate during the previous years in the second half.
Other Changes
An Cad Operator has been hired for faster processing of designs. A new Manager has been hired for facilitating and co-coordinating efforts across the process chain.
So much more to do..
The changes in the offing are multifold,

EFFECT SHORT TERM

• Employ shifts in our bottle neck areas, to ease out traffic.
• Hire one more draftsman.
• Assign helpers to a particular set of machines to prevent unavailability. This will also allow the helper to be trained on his particular set of machines and thus breed skills in house.
• Create racks for Piston Rods for easier pick-up.

EFFECT LONG TERM

• Get people to document policies concerning their particular function. Redefine and revalidate if necessary.
• Create a new assembly area to facilitate faster Assembly and to separate assembly from the production line.
• Get a crane on another side of the shop floor, this should free up helpers.
• Standardize.
• Device a faster Assembly Line, time the current one.
• Have a design policy in place.

The journey finally begins…