Easy to say, tougher to do, and crazy expensive. 

There’s a better way. 

A way that lets you identify the KPI’s that impact fluid performance and fluid cost. 

A way to sustainably drive productivity up and cost per part down. 

Join us at this years Virtual IMTS meeting where we will be presenting the Topic :

“Are unmanaged Fluid KPI’s impacting your cost per part and hurting plant OEE“ 

Our goal is to present a sustainable strategy to identify and then manage and maintain the lead metrics that lead to higher OEE at a lower cost per part. 

Hope to see you there!

Today?  

Today is about quickly implementing new processes into our manufacturing environment, like social distancing and contact tracing to keep our work force safe, while at the same time slowly restarting our plants in a very uncertain market place.  

Restarting plants amid so much uncertainty, is a huge challenge.  

Uncertainty about the market: Is there going to be a customers that buy my product, 

Uncertainty about the work force, Are my workers going to feel safe enough to return to work? 

Uncertainty about cash flow, do we have enough resources to weather this storm no matter how long it lasts? 

It’s a massive challenge for any plant, but the ones that I think are going to be most challenged?

The ones that have historically relied too heavily on tribal knowledge to manage their processes.  

Plants that used past practices vs data to drive their day to day activity.  

These are unprecedented times, and therefore relying solely on past experience is dangerous and puts  people and business at risk.  

Conventional wisdom doesn’t work in unconventional times.

To me, the only gut feeling we should trust right now, is the feeling that data and data analysis will be the only way to navigate ourselves safely out of this mess.  

We’ve heard testing, testing, testing, over and over, but the reality is, testing is only one piece of the whole process that needs to be implemented.  

We need to validate and verify, we need to interpret the data and take action, we need to learn and adjust.  

The plants that have Plan-Do-Check-Act baked into their culture will be able to quickly implement the new processes and adjust their current ones to deal with the dramatically different lead metrics that are racing towards us.

Plants that respond to this crisis by plugging these new processes into a PDCA Management system is essential if we hope to emerge better, stronger, more efficient and less wasteful.  

This crisis requires the Wisdom gained through robust data analysis and timely corrective action, not tribal knowledge or assumptions based on past experience.  

So who’s going to thrive and survive as we come out of this?  

The plants that can quickly implement new processes, quickly identify the new KPI’s that need to be integrated into their Plan Do Check Act management strategies, ie the ones that make data driven execution part of their core DNA.  

An example of over processing is when companies use aggressive PM programs to manage their systems. 

When time instead of condition is used to change out their washers, rinse tanks, coolant sumps or oil systems.  

When there is no cost effective way to identify and track end of life, then plants are stuck using wasteful preventative measures, however when the KPI's that do impact performance can be tracked and monitored, then condition monitoring lets you not only eliminate wasteful over processing, but it provides the data necessary to make better decisions moving forward.  

By adding work that is not required, Over-processing costs money with regards to the time of staff, the materials used and the wear on the equipment.

These costs can amount to a considerable sum over a period of time, they will also reduce efficiencies as the operators that are Over-processing could be performing other value adding tasks that the customer is actually willing to pay you for.

In our world we see a lot of over processing that results from trying to contain problems. 

When the lead KPI’s are not be controlled, companies are forced to be preventative, using past events and tribal knowledge to build PM schedules in their effort to avoid events.. 

This leads to significant waste and wasteful activity. 

In this example, the source of over-processing identified was a final parts washing process. 

The facility had installed this washer in an effort to address a part cleanliness issue they were having. 

By running all the various components cleaned by 4 upstream washers, they used this final wash process as an extra level of insurance to minimize the risk of a quality event. 

It increased costs, increased WIP inventory, consumed valuable floor space, required staffing etc.  but if it meant they weren’t experiencing a “customer detected quality event”, it was worth it. 

The problem was that this containment action didn’t address the real issue and repeated quality spills meant they had to look at the problem from a different perspective.   

In most circumstances, all the KPI's are not known ahead of time, but by implementing a standardized approach to data collection and correlation, its possible to move from preventative to condition based in most systems.  

And the move from preventative to condition based is essential for companies looking to get world class.  

Caught in the Reactive Cycle, where the maintenance department is celebrated for repair instead of prevention and control, this data driven executive had to take some dramatic action to prove that things needed to change.  

Changing how people think, what they prioritize and what they do every day is brutally hard.  

But its necessary when plant culture stands in the way of reaching our World Class Goals.  

What have you seen or done to try to encourage and drive culture change at your plant?

How have you demonstrated the consistency, commitment and courage necessary to make a lasting change in how people approach their work every day?  

Please add to the conversation below.  

We all want to learn how best to shift the thinking of our team if we are to reach our goals together.

The more sites we visit, the more processes we audit, the more we see that variability is truly, in the words of Jack Welch, "the root of all evil".  Process variability is what causes plants to have to build safety factors into their systems.  And as these safety factors build over time, we see that they just continue to add to the cost per part and though they reduce the number of occurrences, they don't eliminate them, because the actual root cause to the problem is never identified or truly understood.  

In this video, we reference a case study that documents how safety factors get built into processes as manufacturers try and keep problems from occurring , when they don't have the time, resources, systems or expertise to truly understand root cause.  In this case an entire final wash process was added to the part flow in an effort to produce 100% quality.  Even though the existing process was producing parts that met spec, "most of the time", non-spec parts occurred often enough that the plant had to do something to contain the problem.  

Here's the issue though, not only does the extra wash process require added capital, operating costs, maintenance, increased processing time, process bottlenecks etc, it never addressed the actual root cause.  So while it improved their quality yield, it still did not let them reach their 100% target.  

If you are interested in reading more, follow this link to CI-222  

And whats the best way to reach 100% Quality?  

Take as much variability out of all your process as possible.  

Due to the nature of the types of processes Mechanical engineers tend to design, they look to "engineer out" variability.  They look to build processes so robust that they are set and forget.  Set them up once and then let them run.

Chemical processes however tend to be more dynamic in nature.  Process inputs like flow, pressure, temperature, concentration, pH etc. can change quickly and significantly.  Therefore when a chemical process is considered in control, its being sampled, analysed, interpreted and corrected on an on-going basis.  Its constantly being monitored and maintained in its efforts to deliver 100% quality.  

It is our contention that most of the processes in a parts manufacturing environment are mechanical in nature.  These are the core processes.  The processes where the company has the in house expertise  necessary to control the aspects that impact product quality.  The core processes are where these firms look to build their competitive advantage and innovate.  

The problem is that there are a small percentage of the processes that are more chemical in nature than mechanical.  These need robust process control solutions vs the more stable processes mechanical engineers are used to dealing with.

So where does Zimmark come in?   

We are a bunch of chemical engineers that bring a unique chemical engineering approach to a predominantly mechanical engineered world.  

We focus on the non-core chemical processes where inputs like pH, concentration, alkalinity, etc can all have a detrimental impact on part quality or total process cost.  

By bringing a unique perspective and focus, we can help parts manufacturers reduce their costs and improve their OEE. 

Curious if there is an aspect of your manufacturing process that needs a chemical vs mechanical mind set? 

An area where maybe not all the process inputs have been identified and their variability is the root cause to aspects hurting your OEE?

Zimmark's Process Variability Audit looks to identify control problems in some of the processes that may not be on your radar as the root cause to quality, availability or excessive cost/waste problems. 

Where there's smoke, there's usually fire, so a process where the inputs are highly variability can often be the source of the problem silently impacting plant OEE.  

Sign up for your Process Variability Audit today, to find out if a bunch of chemical engineers can help you keep variability out of your manufacturing process.  

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?

After some reflection our young plant manager couldn't honestly come up with any direct examples of how the data had improved the process or increased their OEE.

To that the CEO said: “if you are not doing anything to add value with the data, it’s just Window Dressing!”

Using data to change behavior is tough, tough to establish but even tougher to maintain.  

There are many reasons it fails, many reasons that over time data moves from an agent of change to wall hangings that fill up plant production boards.    

We are looking to compile and add to the list of why data can go from change agent to window dressing, and need you help. 

Help us all avoid those potential pitfalls by sharing a time at your facility where the data was being used for a while to drive OEE improvement, but over time, it just turned into window dressing.    

Any stories you could share that highlight that switch from value to waste would be greatly appreciated and benefit us all!  

Thank you for sharing!

It's about a facility that needed to address an urgent issue but didn’t think that collecting related data was worth the time or effort. 

Knowing what data to collect can be a challenge, because unless you collect timely and reliable data and then take the time to interpret and look for relationships to performance results, its useless.

Identifying Lead Metrics and then managing their variability to minimize costs/impact on the manufacturing process is essential if process optimization is the Goal. 

Zimmark's World Class Process Variability Assessment is designed to determine if process variability is hurting plant OEE or plant profitability. 

Its focused on determining if the metrics that are not currently part of your control plan, are in fact standing in the way of meeting your goals. 

Are those un-managed variables, the lead metrics that are standing in the way of sustainable process improvement?

For more information go here.  

One of the many tools we use to help prioritize what all that data is telling us is something called Consumption Alerts.  

Their job is to highlight and identify changes in how much oil a machine is consuming.  

Their job is to help shine a very bright light on the machines that are:

1) Starting to consume more and more oil

2) The machines that are At the greatest risk of running dry and impacting  plant OEE

3) The machines that are requiring the most attention due to increased inspection frequencies and top-ups.

But even with the very best alerts, it can seem like noise to a maintenance department that is working hard to keep their core processes up and running.  

Getting their attention is tough.  

So when the rate of consumption of a specific machine crossed new alert thresholds, our site supervisor knew he had to somehow escalate the issue.  

He didn’t want this data, this information to be lost within all the other pieces of performance data being fed to the maintenance department on a regular basis, so he decided he needed to take a stand.   

By Camping out in the maintenance managers office until he was assigned the necessary maintenance resources,  he was able to communicate the importance of repairing this non-core aspect of the operation.   

Now fortunately he had a good relationship with the maintenance manager, fortunately he had credibility by only using this strategy for high priority events, and fortunately it only required ½ hour to identify and make the repairs, but since making that stand, not a single drop of oil has been added to the system.    

The data was there, it was at the top of the list, but until something occurred that broke the pattern, this leak would have continued to worsen.  

Fortunately what broke the pattern was a proactive event, the stand.  

Too often change only occurs following a reactive event, a major failure that would have resulted in a production interruption and major equipment rebuild.  

So my question to you is, where in your plant do you need to take a stand.  What process do you know is broken, but will be ignored until there is a major issue or event where its the root cause? 

The rewards of letting data vs events drive your actions are immeasurable, but  it requires rigor, it requires discipline and it requires courage. 

It requires taking a stand.