People waste
is defined as:
Not
using peoples' mental abilities, creative abilities, physical
abilities, or skills.
What
is your
belief system regarding your employees? Are they an asset or
a liability? If you view employees as a necessity for the business,
rather than an asset, then you fall into the people waste category.
Human
beings are more flexible and adaptable than anything else ever
created. No machine, robot, or computer will be able to replace
the human being. As a result, the status of the employee needs
to change from just "someone performing a task" to "the
heartbeat of the organization."
Equipment,
machinery, and processes are vital components to an organization.
They provide the means to produce a product "bigger, faster,
better." However, it is the human factor that makes it happen.
How many times has this happened?: Joe Operator is out sick,
on vacation, or retired. Bob Operator is the replacement but
can't get the machine to "hum" like Joe Operator. There
are many reasons why this situation occurs. For whatever the
reason, people are being underutilized.
In
the past, creativity and problem solving have been left up to
the white-collar employees. The white-collar attitude has been "that's
what I get paid to do" or "I went to college so I..." There
needs to be a paradigm shift.
Each
employee comes with a set of skills, knowledge, talents, and
experience. An example of this is a project CITEC completed with
a high-volume manufacturing line that produces electronic sensors
for the automotive industry. The placement of this sensor is
under the hood. Since the environment in a car's engine compartment
is less than rosy, the sensor requires a protective coating.
This coating is thin and conforms to the components on the circuit
-- this is known as conformal coating.
The
conformal coating process first-pass yield (containing no coating
holes or voids) was around 80-85%. That is not bad, but when
25,000 pieces/week are required, that 15-20% meant a lot of rework.
The total time for the process was over two hours before the
coated units could be oven-cured.
After
observing the current process and asking "why?" many
times, we asked the operator how she would change the process.
The goal was to increase the first-pass yield and reduce the
coating process time. She made several suggestions and together
we did some experiments, which included her suggestions. After
the testing was completed and the new parameters confirmed, the
new process was implemented with a first-pass yield of 96-98%
and a coating process time of 30 minutes.
If
CITEC hadn't involved the operator -- the one who lives with
the process/machine every day -- improvement of the conformal
coating process wouldn't have been as dramatic. No outside expert
is as familiar with the process as your own operator.
Granted,
there are many details left out of this example. The goal is
to illustrate the power of employee involvement in the problem
solving process. A work environment that encourages employees
to suggest process improvements and involves them in the implementation
from the ground up will have significant impact on your business.
CITEC
can help you identify the causes and sources of waste within
your operation and help your people create solutions.
Contact
CITEC's WasteBuster today: Eric Myers.
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