Why Sustaining Improvement projects are very difficult?

I think the primary reason for this is the Supervisors/ Shop floor engineers (who are supposed to do improvement projects) are caught in the daily activities / fire-fighting.

In many cases the top management / Managers also try to support this and push the improvement projects to other teams.

This will not produce any results in the long run.

Implementing changes in the shopfloor requires the support from the Production supervisors and without their involvement, this would not sustain.

So the big question is “How to make your Production Supervisors / Engineers to implement Continuous Projects”?

Daily Work Management (DWM) is a tool which can help your incharges / engineers standardize their daily routine and help them focus on improvement activities

Step 1: Setting the KRA and KPIs for the department – Start with identifying the key result areas (KRA) and the key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the function. For e.g. Productivity can be a KRA and Output per person can be a KPI. Finalise the KRA and KPIs and also the Targets for the next 1 year

Step 2: Create Visual Indicators – display the KRA, KPIs in a large Information Board, so that all the employees in the zone can see the indicators

Step 3: Leader Standard Work – Standardize the daily activities of the incharge / engineer. Create a Time Table for each of their day-to-day activities.

Step 4: Accountability / Review – Weekly Review with the incharge on their activities and improving the same.

When the DWM is followed, Supervisors / Engineers would start focusing on the important activities (improvement Projects).

We would also recommend a Performance Measurement System with Rewards & recognitions which would motivate the supervisors to sustain the improvement projects.

You can also read this article in LinkedIn here

Cheers,


Ananth