A Manufacturing Oxymoron: Wasteful KPI's

How can a KPI be Wasteful?

Isn't the very definition of a KPI or Key Performance Indicator, a lead metric that helps drive the results we are looking to achieve in a manufacturing environment?

Though data and KPI's are the critical ingredient we need in order to optimize our processes and reach World Class Manufacturing standards, when they no longer change our behavior, they become a source of waste, not control.

Too many plants collect KPI's but don't do anything with them.

Too many programs have been implemented, don't sustain over time and no longer bring value and drive control or CI.

Look critically at your plant activities, look for the data acquisition tasks that are no longer bringing value, and either re-commit, or stop doing them altogether.

Just like the CEO that called his Lean Team Boards "Window dressing" because they didn't change the process or what people did every day, in our relentless effort to eliminate waste and wasteful activity, we need to either fix our data driven initiatives, or stop doing them.

So the question, what Lean initiatives are you going to either stop doing altogether or instead decide to recommit to?