Getting lean IT on your shop floor

Lean initiatives started on the shop floor with the Toyota Production System, and most companies look here for the simple reason that some of the most obvious gains are to be made where value is physcially added to the product. Benefits in the form of freeing up production capacity, consolidating operations into a smaller footprint and allowing expansion of other production lines, can accrue from relatively simple, non-IT analysis, and quite quickly. So the first message is, before you start on the IT, look to your processes. Value stream mapping (VSM) – the now classic technique involving producing 'maps' of your current business state and its ideal future, based on what you perceive as 'customer value' – is the accepted key starting point. From this management exercise come the ideas and priorities governing big picture shop floor reorganisation and investment, as well as detailed machine initiatives and the rest – all aimed at eliminating waste and increasing product throughput. But mapping processes is a fairly straightforward exercise, creating the future is more tricky. Where and how do you begin making changes to the shop floor to get there? Importantly, before you stop production and start moving kit about, you need to know that anticipated improvements really are going to accrue. Here's where three IT strategies can help. Firstly, simulation systems can help with both pre-planning manufacturing processes and making changes to existing facilities, by assisting understanding of the consequences of suggested alterations. And various inexpensive software solutions can test new shop floor layouts, optimising them against current and future demand pattern scenarios, for example. Simulation systems can evaluate various hypothetical responses to a change in circumstances, such as an unexpected demand hike, or different forecast product mixes. Such techniques can, for example, highlight potential bottlenecks, or help perform Theory of Constraints (TOC) analysis. Vendors abound: firms like Delmia, Tecnomatix and Simul8 – which helped Vosper Thorneycroft, for example, identify bottlenecks and confirm that its production facilities had the capacity to handle throughput at its Portsmouth facility where the Type 45 destroyer is being assembled. Meanwhile TOC initiatives, not dissimilar to lean, have to be tackled by finding the weakest links in production – focusing on the bottlenecks and slaving everything else to them on the route to improvement. Again, that's what Simul8 provided. Essentially, Vosper's factory production data is 'squirted' through its software model to see how it reacts. There, the system proved panel fabrication workstation concepts. "It gave us an indication of where the problem areas would be and how to develop specific strategies," says Andy Shaw, strategic planning executive at Vosper. "It showed how the plant would react when different products were blended." But simulation systems don't just help with bottlenecks. Increases in product velocity can also accrue. Witness the improvements at Ford's V6 engine plant in Cologne, Germany, where simulation for designing and operating the engine manufacturing facilities has been in use since the mid '80s. Today, the firm regards simulation as an "indispensable tool in production planning," and one that can provide what the company describes as "an enormous competitive advantage." John Ladbrook, from the Productivity Engineering section at Ford's Powertrain Manufacturing and Plant Engineering Group, reports tangible benefits with detailed modelling leading to changes adopted that "produced a 3% increase in output." His chosen simulation software, Witness from Lanner Group, offers business and process mapping, optimisation methods and 3D visualisation. Other features include data mining analysis, resource forecasting, planning and scheduling links to spreadsheets, drawings and CAD, costing packages and an integrated decision support suite. Buffer slayer However, there's more. Also valuable to making lean work flexibly on the shop floor is scheduling software. It comes in many forms and levels of sophistication – part of relatively simple production control software that might include tool scheduling for a cell of machine tools, to full-blown advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems, with supply chain extensions. These simultaneously optimise use of materials and resources to maximise throughput, usually with the focus on ensuring orders are completed on time. They can also be used to run offline 'what-if' scenarios, revealing the impacts on production of different production mixes, routes, overtime and so on. And early adopters confirm the software vendors' claims of usefulness in enabling the effects of new and changed orders to be calculated, so that shop floors can be re-optimised, customers quoted lead times and prices based on actual capacity and so on. It's all part of getting away from too much reliance on standard lead times and finished and partially finished safety buffers. Returning to TOC, some APS offerings are increasingly being seen as the next step in supporting DBR (the famous 'drum', 'buffer', 'rope'), achieving the goal under flexible software management – and particularly useful where multiple, moving bottlenecks are concerned. Take 'buffer management': it's widely accepted that buffer stocks exist because of a lack of information. If you knew what you needed and when, the buffer could virtually disappear. TOC-aware APS systems help by tuning production schedules in real time helping you to produce just enough, just in time. Real-time results Three caveats. First, there are numerous scheduling systems but few that work in real time – and you need to be aware of bandwagon jumping. Since TOC and lean manufacturing are pragmatic, respecting the real world of, for example, minimum machine set-up times, you need a system that's real-time and 'thinks'. Second, the software alone isn't going to get you to the goal: you still need to work on aspects like tool management, numbers, and the rest, and appropriate fixtures optimised for fewest changeovers so that when the schedule call comes you can act. Third, buffers will always exist to feed the bottleneck: we need some comfort zone and ultimately these systems shouldn't be thought of as taking over – they automate what they can and support decisions, that's all. The point is buffers will be fewer, smaller and less prone to obsolescence. The need for real-time information feeding back into the system leads us neatly to shop floor data capture (SFDC). Business IT must reflect reality if capacity and materials are to be used to their maximum. Despite common objections, SFDC of various levels of sophistication is increasingly proving its worth, not least because of the need for production decisions to be made on the hoof. That's a result of reducing stocks through the company, moving more from make-to-stock and -forecast to make-to-order. As you go more into lean pull mode, real-time production information becomes more vital. Technologies abound – from human machine interfaces (HMIs), to hand-held and touch screen PCs, barcode scanning systems, emergent RFID (radio frequency identification) systems, but also electronic production management systems that make flexible, cell-based lean manufacturing so workable. Think of the likes of Mestec and Manusoft. Real-time, up-to-date multi-way shop floor information – simple status or a lot more – is part of the route to improving scheduling, longer range planning, training and efficiency. The information can also be used to verify cycle and changeover times on which calculations are based, and to guide improvement initiatives and best practice. It's not just about job tracking, although that may be all you need. Again, it can be simple, inexpensive stuff. Final word: consultants worth their salt should be saying: "Look at your processes first, before IT solutions are even discussed. There have to be business drivers for change. Get this right, and the IT will follow."