The 12 principles of Manufacturing Excellence

stages of development of manufacturing's role

Every manufacturing plants performance can be viewed as stages of development along a continuum. Manufacturing's role could be though about in four stages:
Stage 1: internally neutral, manufacturing is kept flexible and reactive. Stage 2: externally neutral, achieve parity with competitors Stage 3: internally supportive, provide credible support to the business strategy. Stage 4: externally supportive, pursue manufacturingbased competitive advantage

Manufacturing excellence principles

Safety is cornerstone Good housekeeping and organization Disciplined use of authorized formal systems. Preventative and predictive maintenance Process capability measure Product quality ownership Timed product delivery Shop floor visual management Continuous productivity improvement A comprehensive communication plan A comprehensive training plan Operated Led process control culture

The tools
Culture OLPC operator-led process control culture. The insatiable quest to eliminate waste and change the culture is the driver behind the strategy to be the best. Lean thinking is that the root of continuous improvement initiative.

The manufacturing excellence audit (MEA)

The MEA process is the single most important tool to bring about the radical improvement in manufacturing performance. The audit is also :
Capture the current state for each principle Quantify the Gap between current and stage 4 performance Forced focus and accountability on the areas the scored poorly Reinforce the need for continuous improvement Reinforce the need to sustain Foster the benchmarking of best practice , promote reaching out and shamelessly stealing good ideas. Provide healthy competition among plant managers

Principle 1: Safety
Safety is the cornerstone of a high-performance plant. It is characterized by a high associate awareness and involvement, effective associate training, ergonomically sound work environments, vigorous investigation, and root cause elimination of unsafe acts and conditions and results in zero accidents. Measure using OSHA Recordable Incident rate (ORIR)

Safety performance
Is everyone wearing the required personal protection equipment Are operators engaged in maintenance of their equipment Are operators keeping their machines and work area clean Do operators address unsafe acts and conditions. Do operators receive proper training such as how to lift properly. How vigorous is the accident investigation process. How many repeat occurrence are there. How comprehensive is the safety audit process. How an incident and its corrective action get visibility elsewhere in the plant. How normal is the use poka-yoke as a tool. Is safety rule violation is subject to disciplinary action.

Principle 1 Plant champion

The safety champion is the person whom the rest of the organization will depend on to stay up to date with the state of the art in terms of program support and training. He will be the local expert on occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) matters.

Principle 2: Good Housekeeping and Organization

Use of the 5S (sort, set in order, standardize, shine, and sustain) techniques is required. A place for everything and everything in its place.

principle 2 champion
The plant manager must own principle 2. This is the first major test of how strong the leaders conviction is to direct change necessary to achieve world-class levels. The most important thing about 5S is that every square inch of property, inside and out, has somebodys name on it as the one responsible for its cleanliness and organization.

Sort
Take picture of the current state. There are things that are taking up space, collecting dust, getting in the way. Their removal creates space for operator,. Have a red-tag event: place a red tag on anything that is not necessary to accomplish the mission in that area. Remove all red tagged items.

Set in order
Organize the workplace such that every thing has a place. Decisions will be made with the scheduling group regarding how much raw material needs to be staged at the machine and exactly where it should be placed.

Standardize
It is time to standardize within the cell and ultimately throughout the plant. The commonality will be important to everyone's to move seamlessly from one part of the plant to another as job opportunity present themselves.

Shine
It is time to clean and shine. Snap shot how the area looks to demonstrate how it should look from that day forward. Post the photo on the bulletin board next to the before 5S pictures The after 5S picture are the new standard.

sustain
Sustain is forever. The supervisor may initially perform the audits.

Principle 3: authorized formal systems

Disciplined use of authorized formal systems is required to ensure data integrity of bills of materials (BOMs), routers, labor, scrap, and inventory records, Use of inaccurate data results in financial and consumer service surprises and causes poor decision making.