Tough but true

Why do truisms strike us so? In conversation the other day with Dawn Kynaston, a partner with manufacturing business improvement consultancy Oliver Wight, about people, processes and software tools, she said: "The key to getting any shopfloor working well is detailed scheduling." Clearly, there are some assumptions in that statement, but surely it should be obvious, shouldn't it? Equally true, however, she added: "Managements mostly think their shopfloors are too complex, so no computer could possibly solve the problems as well as their experienced planners." And that view is doubtless bolstered by planners, who see planning tools as set to do them out of a job. So scepticism around everything from shopfloor reporting tools to APS (advanced planning and scheduling) software lives on. Which is why, until recently, only the enlightened few had bought into the notion – and started to see margins and customer service improve as a result of properly optimised shopfloor operations and, for that matter, supply chains. For many others, fire fighting (given undue gravitas by the term 'expediting') prevails, because issues that invariably include inadequate data accuracy, manual spreadsheet management and poorly understood (and even less well documented) processes get in the way. Probably for the rest, scheduling tools are purchased in the belief that they will solve shopfloor process problems as if they were magic wands – and, unsurprisingly, fail. The truth is there is very little magic in real life. So it's time to put some effort into understanding your processes – and that includes verifying supposed standard machine times, BoMs, routings and supplier lead times. That done, it's about simplifying, rationalising and then documenting your future state. Only then can you expect to make real progress with IT-based automation. As Kynaston puts it: "You have to challenge some of the accepted norms at the shopfloor level: aspects such as changeover times and lineside inventory requirements. Get away from the personalities and build good, optimised, documented processes." Otherwise you don't know what you're trying to automate, or even that it makes any sense. There's no value in taking shortcuts, any more than there is sense in trying to run before you can walk. Yes, it's yet another truism, but there's no gain without pain.