A Clash of the Ages?

In 2017 Tim Gurner a Melbourne property developing millionaire caused controversy when he said that millennials (Generation Y & Z) should stop buying smashed avocado toast from hipster cafes. Instead he suggested they should focus on working harder and buying property. Again in 2017 Forbes published an article which stated that millennials were killing the following 5 Industries: Chain Restaurants; Diamonds; Home ownership; Movie Theatres; and Cereal.

In response to statements like these Millennials have taken to the internet to mock baby boomers with memes (an image/video etc that is humorous in nature that is copied and spread through out internet users) for what they perceive as a generation of greedy people hogging all the worlds wealth.

Whilst most people can see that these are stereotypes of these generations, they do highlight the huge issue of generational change.

What does all this generational change mean for the workforce?

The reality is that Australian baby boomers are ageing with a large number of them leaving the workforce to enjoy their retirement. Looking at the graph you can notice that already generation Y outnumbers the baby boomers in the workforce by 9% and generation X outnumbers them by 6%.

What this means is as the baby boomers leave the workforce, they are creating a labour shortage in management that is becoming difficult to fill. This is because the average retention rate of working for one firm has plummeted from 15 years in 1959 to just 4 years currently. This has resulted in young staff that show promise being promoted beyond their experience. Some unique individuals succeed in their new positions, but many can fail and leave the firm all together.

How does a firm deal with this management labour deficit?

If a firm doesn’t deal with the management labour deficit properly a generation of knowledge can be lost to an entire firm. There are two principles that any firm can use to deal with the management labour deficit. The first principle is to discover ways to convert a baby boomers’ managerial knowledge into a format that can be understood by a younger generation of employees. The second is to pick a viable replacement candidate as early as possible as to give the individual time to prepare for the role through consulting the retiring manager and allowing them to ask for extra assistance if the individual believes they require it.

Whilst implementing such a system seems like a daunting task, if a firm is willing to review the abilities of its ageing managerial staff, understand how to manage that knowledge and satisfy the needs of its younger employees. An appropriate system to deal with the management labour deficit can be established, with the right managerial support and planning.

5 steps to avoid the deficit:

Know the demographics of your workforce and look at your retention strategy through the lens of this workforce changeIdentify and develop emerging leaders to prepare for turnover in the management team Value and harness the life and work experience of the baby boomer generation to help prepare the next generationDevelop knowledge transfer opportunitiesLeverage the Gen Y/Millenial generation’s desire for mentoring, surveys show they turn to the baby boomer generation for advice

References

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-10/millenials-v-baby-boomers-whats-the-point-of-stereotypes/10593500

http://money.com/money/4778942/avocados-millennials-home-buying/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewjosuweit/2017/10/22/5-industries-millennials-are-killing-and-why/#146295244e42

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-10/generation-profile/10599104

How Lean and Reshoring work together creating better outcomes.

In a 2013 survey of US executives audit, tax, and advisory firm Grant Thornton found that more than one-third of US businesses would move goods and services production back to the US in 2014. While an earlier survey by ThomasNet in 2012 found 95 percent of manufacturers planning to buy more domestically.

Australian business leaders recognising a resurgence in US manufacturing by 2010, formed the Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council to advance Australia’s world class potential in high value manufacturing. Dow Chemicals and a dozen other organisations became founding members. Andrew Liveris, global CEO of Dow pointed to significant growth in manufacturing jobs in the US and the role of reshoring, saying “Australia can benefit from this country’s highly skilled and trained workforce, like Germany and Singapore, and be as competitive as the US on input costs. Australia has the ingredients for a dynamic advanced manufacturing economy – we just need to foster the right environment.”

Reshoring ... what shoring? ... and what is it?

Offshoring, reshoring, right-shoring, or you might hear mention of ... onshoring, nearshoring, homeshoring, backshoring, insourcing, repatriating manufacturing, or even botshoring which combines the notion of automation with a business moving location.

Reshoring or onshoring brings a business back to its home town or country of origin, while nearshoring locates operations within the region or in a neighbouring country.

It is really a decision about where to locate business operations; locally, regionally, or internationally. Choosing the best model for a business involves deciding not only where you will operate but also how you will operate.

Speaking on behalf of the Reshoring Initiative at a Lean Accounting Summit in San Antonio, Texas, Michele Nash-Hoff listed the main advantages of reshoring as:

Faster lead times - 49-50% reductionDelivery accuracy - 30-40% improvedUnforeseen disruptions - companies can respond swiftlyVolatile demand - closer proximity increases agilityCompetitiveness - better at serving local markets while maintaining low costs

Walmart is a supporter of reshoring. Committing to increasing its U.S. purchases by $50 billion annually by January 2023. Within two years Walmart’s support created more than 4,500 U.S. manufacturing jobs with more than 40 of their suppliers.

Professional hairdressing equipment manufacturer Farouk System’s expanded their operations in Texas rather than expanding overseas in response to concerns about counterfeiting of parts, costs, and production problems. Creating 400 jobs in the US and increasing efficiency, with the results far outweighing the marginally higher cost of labour in the US.

UK automotive supplier Stadco reports manufacturers like Jaguar Land Rover increasingly turn to them and other local suppliers. Stadco’s robust lean manufacturing operation and ability to respond to supply requests within hours is outperforming foreign competitors, who are unable to match their high quality and timely supply.

Reshoring in Australia

Henry Zhou, general manager for Omron Electronics Australia expected more on-shoring in 2017 when contemplating the year ahead for Industry Update, writing “With the growth in robotics and 3D printing in Australian manufacturing plants labour costs are becoming less important in manufacturing. It’s now more important to be close to customers and close to the source of raw materials.”

Zhou is not alone among Australian executives who are looking beyond unit costs for a competitive advantage.

Meeting Australian market needs onshore

Even while the Australian car manufacturing industry was passing into history, Iveco was increasing their Australian manufacturing activity, successfully producing a new truck model in Dandenong, Victoria. Locally sourcing components including mirrors, batteries, wheels, liquids, wheel angles and trailer connectors, as well as investing in new tooling and technology. By manufacturing locally Iveco can give customers more customisation options and achieve faster turnaround.

In Brisbane, Jack Winson, CEO of Signet observed customers increasingly wanting shorter wait times and smaller production runs of the packaging and plastic films the company produces. Finding off-shore options inadequate and investing in a $2 million Italian-made Macchi machine to triple their domestic production Signet is taking advantage of being able to turn around jobs in a few days.

Mr Winson said the new capability was drawing significant interest from customers. “Manufacturing here in Brisbane means we have control, ensuring a consistently high-quality product that meets our clients’ needs, and the flexibility to ensure we can meet the most challenging deadlines.”

Innovation and production onshore

Evolve Group’s Managing Director Ty Hermans says, “It’s very frustrating every time a project is taken offshore before considering getting a local manufacturer to quote on the work.”

Partnering with inventors and businesses, Evolve specialises in turning product ideas and inventions into commercialised products. Their product design and development, manufacturing, and distribution has resulted in exports to more than 128 countries around the world and awards for product design.

“We are actually re-shoring jobs that went to China years ago as we demonstrate the many benefits of working with a local supplier that extend far beyond just cheaper part costs,” says Hermans. Lean manufacturing principles, robotics and automation services underpin Evolve’s ability compete and win reshoring business.

Dulux demonstrated how a commitment to onshore operations can help a business take an efficient leap forward. Building a new factory in Victoria to replace older operations interstate, the high levels of automation, changes in staff roles, and improvements in the service they could offer customers, puts them at the leading edge of paint manufacturing. (Detailed in our earlier blog: How Industry 4.0 is progressing in Australian businesses.)

GE improves production reshoring from China to Kentucky

When Jeff Immelt succeeded Jack Welch as CEO, GE added Lean to its business practices alongside its established commitment to Six Sigma. Immelt also set about making IT the backbone of the business, anticipating the dramatic influence it would have on manufacturing in future and its fortuitous combination with Lean manufacturing.

Lean at GE means making opportunities to improve the process or respond to changes in the market as quickly as possible by locating all the functions associated with manufacturing from product development to quality control on the same site. This is Lean thinking which aligns with the benefits of onshoring or reshoring.

At Appliance Park in Louisville, $800m was invested in redesigning all the product lines, the way in which GE manufactures, and a data centre to help drive efficiency, productivity, and quality.

In Harvard Business Review Immelt writes “By revamping what was a 25-year-old dishwasher line, the Appliance Park team has reduced the time to produce by 68% and the space required by more than 80%. While the focus remains on creating the best designs and the highest quality, everything leads to the intended cost-cutting by-product of reducing waste.”

Reshoring operations from China has reduced GE’s costs, increased cash flow and created more than 4,000 jobs in their own U.S. operations and 18,000 jobs in their U.S. based suppliers.

Immelt says of reversing course and investing heavily in renewing American manufacturing operations, “we can bring manufacturing back to the United States and be profitable.”

Disrupting electronics manufacturing in North America

In Canada, electronic manufacturing services provider SigmaPoint is disrupting its industry to the extent that it’s bringing business back onshore.

Breaking the mould of traditional manufacturing and supply chain industries they do everything from designing to prototyping, low to high volume, under one roof and are dedicated to Lean manufacturing. They argue that offshoring for lower labour rates just translates into paying less for the waste in your processes.

SigmaPoint eliminates waste to bring costs down. Lean coaches who are expert in the use of tools for continuous improvement work with their teams, developing their ability to bridge the gap between the current and future states the company wants to achieve.

“As a result, our management has raised the level of what we expect from them, which is not only to push the product out every day, but to ensure we know how to troubleshoot the gap,” says Stephane Dubreuil, Vice President of Operations and Lean Enterprise Solutions.

SigmaPoint ask why wouldn’t their customers reshore? North American technology companies can manufacture nearby with exceptional quality and very agile and flexible strategies, while bringing costs down.

Reshoring the lean way

Reshoring has been prompted by changing cost factors and the realisation that distance can impede efficiency. Moving the location of business operations is always challenging but does offer many opportunities to apply Lean principles, increasing operational efficiency in the new location:

Removing time differences, speeding up communication and problem resolutionImproving environmental factors with less product miles, better controls, and infrastructure for managing by-products and waste

Whether offshoring operations or being onshore is best will really depend on individual business circumstances and capabilities.

“It all depends on what the customers are looking for, whether responsiveness is critical. If they need to get a product to market quickly, onshore manufacturing is the only way,” says Jack Winson, CEO at Signet, but he cautions that movements in the dollar make planning and investment for bringing production onshore quite challenging.

References https://www.ptonline.com/articles/the-truth-about-reshoring https://www.manufacturingglobal.com/lean-manufacturing/reshoring-initiative-and-walmart-launch-effort-help-suppliers-reshore https://www.industryupdate.com.au/article/new-council-drive-advanced-manufacturing https://www.productivityinc.com/07-offshoring-reshoring-right-shoring-shuffle/ https://www.industryupdate.com.au/article/onshore-manufacturing-pays-truck-manufacturer https://www.industryupdate.com.au/article/brisbane-manufacturing-firm-trumps-silicone-valley-heavyweights https://www.industryupdate.com.au/article/onshoring-future-australian-manufacturing https://hbr.org/2012/03/the-ceo-of-general-electric-on-sparking-an-american-manufacturing-renewal https://www.supplychaindigital.com/company/reshoring-sigmapoint-paradigm-shift#

Reduction in project length, lower costs and greater profitability: why you should be using Lean Construction and the Last Planner

The Lean methodology is making a mark in the construction industry around the world. Providing a philosophy and approach which addresses behaviour and uses tools to help teams work more effectively together and improve their work processes.

Improving construction industry productivity using Lean thinking offers a new approach for Australian construction firms which want to improve their performance. Traditionally, examining productivity in the industry has looked only at: apprentices, wages, research and development, unionisation, and safety regulation.

The number of organisations embracing Lean in Construction in Europe and the United Sates is higher than in Australia. However as clear evidence of performance improvement continues to be seen, the use Lean in Construction is on the rise here.

Performance Drivers has worked with clients in the industry building their internal capabilities and implementing a variety of tools and methods, including; Last Planner, 5S, and vendor management.

These construction clients have achieved:

defect reductions of 70%inventory tracking errors reductions of 50%, saving $20,000 per annumimproved vendor delivery performance30% reductions in the time to build a house by resolving scheduling issuesbuilt 30% more houses per year with the same resources

A case study from the US illustrates the difference the adoption of Lean practices can make in construction:

About 9 years ago, Baker Concrete Constructions built two hot dipped galvanising lines on a site in Alabama. Each project required of 76,000 cubic metres of concrete to pour.

As an experienced team on Line 1 used Lean Construction tools and practices (mainly Last Planner and 5S), the second team on the Line 2 employed the traditional Project Management approach using tools such as Critical Path Planning.

The result from Line 1 vs those from Line 2:

36% less peak manpower 75% less formwork28% less equipment rental

And Line 1 had:

19% faster completion68% less end-of-job overtime12% better labour productivity

There was a 17.4% cost difference between the two projects.

Lean offers great potential for the construction industry

It is clear that, through the effective implementation of Lean Construction tools and practices, construction firms can significantly improve their competitiveness. With the keys to a successful implementation being; how you engage with your staff, your suppliers and your clients, involving them with training, information, and good communication to build good relationships.

References https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ema2QqfYA0&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud9ZwDeWMFo https://iglcstorage.blob.core.windows.net/papers/attachment-1cd4b981-1259-4229-988a-0b17bedc90a4.pdf The Lean Construction Institute is the owner of the Last Planner trademark. www.leanconstruction.org

The tools and practices improving construction project outcomes

Interest in the potential of Lean thinking to improve performance in the Construction industry is on the rise. We’re seeing clear evidence of substantial performance improvements among our clients, and in construction businesses of all types and sizes.

Lean/Integrated Project Delivery is a response to customer and supply chain dissatisfaction with the results in the building industry. Results from using Lean or Integrated Project Delivery in construction include improvements in safety, customer satisfaction, quality of construction, reductions in project length, lower costs, and greater profitability.

Research conducted by the Lean Construction Institute – Australasia Limited (LCIA) shows that when Lean is done correctly, the following measures can be achieved:

Tools and practices include:

Last Planner® and the Last Planner® System of Production Control

The Last Planner is an individual or group which directly assign activities to workers, including supervisors in design, construction etc.

The Last Planner® System of Production Control was developed to improve the predictability and reliability of workflow, improving the hand-off of work in the construction process, and to optimise the project as a whole. It is often the starting point for a Lean construction project and the following concepts all have roots in the Last Planner System.

Master Scheduling – also known as Master Planning

Not so much for control of the project, more a tool for identifying the major events and milestones. It is also a means of assessing whether the project requirements are being met, identifying long lead items, and providing a basis for contracts with the supply chain..

Pull Planning - also known as Phase Planning or reverse phase scheduling

This planning process begins with the end of the project in mind, working backwards to plan what should be done to deliver the requested project outcome. It is a collaborative and detailed process: With everyone who knows about different aspects of the work contributing what they know about the work, the materials, and the equipment required.

Look ahead planning

This is the detailed planning done by a team which looks six to eight weeks ahead, drawing on the pull plan for upcoming activities. The weekly meeting to look ahead aims to identify any constraints which could impede the work. Responsibility for overcoming each constraint is assigned and progress updated each week. Resolution moves the status of the work from should be accomplished to can be accomplished. The most practical tool in the Last Planner is PPK (Percentage of Promises Kept) which forms the core of the weekly progress meetings.

In part two of our Lean Construction and the Last Planner series, read more about the results of using Lean in Construction.

References

Real leaders show how to stop wasting time in meetings

Leaders set the tone and can change meeting culture in an organisation. Reducing the time

employees will waste or be less productive as they try to work on something else during a meeting.

Eric Bosco is CEO at advertising company Choicestream, and takes a radical approach to keep meetings moving, arming a team member with a nerf gun to shoot anyone who over runs their allotted time.

Bosco’s approach might be too extreme for many, but he does share a fundamental concern about the usefulness and productivity of meetings with many other business leaders.

Shifting the corporate meeting culture

As the new head of Google, Larry Page immediately sent an email to all staff entitled How to conduct meetings effectively. Essentially it said, you probably do not need to have a meeting.

Page thinks you shouldn’t wait for a meeting to make important decisions. If it is necessary to bring people together to make a decision, do it immediately.

In late 2006, CEO Alan Mulally set about changing the meeting culture of Ford’s senior executive. Replacing five days once a month spent discussing auto programs and reviewing performance with four to five hours once a week and standardized content.

This released thousands of hours of preparation and participation time and improved the pace and quality of decision-making. In addition, the executives eliminated and shortened other meetings and became more selective about requests for new meetings.

At GE, John Flannery took over leadership in 2017 and his experience working overseas is influencing change. He understands the challenges of operating a long way away from decision makers and the benefits of greater autonomy. It allowed his team to make major decisions, increasing accountability among those closest to the business while helping GE Capital in Asia move more swiftly.

Flannery’s changes also have workers spending less time on internal issues and reviews, and with his advocacy of little or no meetings wherever possible, meetings have been drastically cut.

Taking a Lean approach to meetings

Irish construction company, Sisk, put meetings and reports under scrutiny when they began implementing Lean thinking.

They collected some simple data on the number of meetings, who was attending, and rough percentages of time spent on topics in the meeting, then created some new rules:

Meetings have a 1 hour hard stopMinutes have a 1 page limitReports have a 2 page limitEmail is used only if talking is not enoughAnd ... keep talking to each other

Meetings are conducted standing up with minutes taken only if necessary. Realising from the data that they met with clients each week then also supplied a written monthly report, they sought and gained client agreement to eliminate monthly reporting.

Sisk is saving about 40 hours per week and they estimate their supply chain, who participate in their meetings, are saving at least double that amount of time.

Changing meetings with a challenge

Intel got results when they set a 30-minute meeting challenge for their 90,000+ employees, who are spread across 62 countries.

The approach was simple. Anyone could participate. Simply try to reduce meetings by 30 minutes using the effective meeting practices they already knew. Then report their experience via a web survey.

The challenge made people conscious of using meeting time wisely. There was no cost or bureaucracy, and Intel estimate a recovery of 27,000 hours of employee time.

As Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, once wrote, “Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of office equipment, you shouldn’t let anyone walk away with the time of his fellow managers.”

Meeting habits

Every second Monday Steve Jobs met with Apple’s advertising agency, Chiat/Day. Ken Segall worked on the Apple account for Chiat/Day for more than a decade and writes, “Apple encourages big thinking but small everything else.”

When Jobs eye landed on a new face in one of their Monday meetings, he simply asked who they were, then unsatisfied with their response said, “I don’t think we need you in this meeting, thanks.” He moved on as if they didn’t exist, while they picked up their belongings and left the meeting.

Segall says, “The idea is pretty basic: Everyone in the room should be there for a reason. There’s no such thing as a mercy invitation. Either you’re critical to the meeting or you’re not. It’s nothing personal, just business.”

In Steve Jobs’ meeting with Apple’s advertising agency there wasn’t an agenda. The meetings shared work in progress and any news Jobs had to offer which is quite different to other meetings at Apple.

“Any effective meeting at Apple will have an action list,” says a former employee. “Next to each action item will be the DRI.”

The DRI is Applespeak for the directly responsible individual. This shared or common language makes it easy for people to understand; who to contact, who is the meeting owner on an agenda, or who is responsible for action after a meeting.

When a meeting is more

Recently, awarded the Creative Marketer of the Year award at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Lorraine Twohill, senior VP of global marketing for Google Twohill doesn’t follow former CEO Larry Page’s advice on meetings.

In interviews she speaks about appointing women to senior roles, diversity in the workplace, the need to mentor, and how important real people and real life is in marketing.

So, when she says, “I have between 17 and 20 meetings in a day. I’ll do stand-up meetings, walking one-on-ones. In my role, a lot of people want to run stuff by me, and I don’t want to be the bottleneck. I’m obsessive about making meetings highly productive.” you understand she is being a resource and coach as much as a decision maker in those meetings.

What you should get from meetings

Remember these five guidelines to help you decide if a meeting will be useful to you, what to ask for to improve a meeting, and if the meeting you are planning is needed at all.

Is it a good use of your time? - Avoid the blanket invitation meetings, ask why you are needed or what is needed from you as attending may not even be necessary. What can’t you get via other means of communication? – use channels of communication effectively, meetings shouldn’t substitute for other channels of communication, build a culture of accountability for keeping abreast of communication.Focus meetings on collaboration which unearths new ideas and resolves challenges –progress updates can be done digitallyFocus on what is most important – Starting with the most important item or making it the only item on the agenda and letting the most important participants speak early in the meeting.Clarity about what will happen next and who will do it – ask if it isn’t clear.

References

https://www.fastcompany.com/1669936/meetings-are-a-skill-you-can-master-and-steve-jobs-taught-me-how

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ges-new-management-mantra-little-or-no-meetings-1530054893

https://www.fastcompany.com/3051546/twenty-meetings-a-day-how-googles-head-of-marketing-ha

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2016/08/29/meeting-hacks-from-google-virgin-and-facebook/#4b9409ab83b7

https://hbr.org/2014/05/your-scarcest-resource

https://www.slideshare.net/ITatIntel/i-tat-intel30minutechallengefinalmay2012

https://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2015/11/18/12-ways-to-stop-wasting-time-in-meetings.html#gs.M=o8xxA

How to get your own A-Team.

You probably recall the 1980s TV series The A-Team, which represented one definition of an A-Team; an elite group of special forces soldiers. As a team, they also stood out for their exceptional skills and sense of purpose. Characteristics which are valuable in any team.

Having an A-team with the right characteristics vastly increases your chances of achieving the business process improvement (BPI) outcomes and continuous improvement (CI) you want. Whether you are using Lean or possibly components of Six Sigma in an office, service, distribution or manufacturing environments, or Last Planner in projects or construction, or you’re using MOS. Mastering these BPI tools is the easy bit!

Making changes to your own and other people’s habits and routines is the challenge. Getting a team onboard and making changes will mean building a positive team culture and their ability to tackle the work.

Your role in an A-Team

Whatever role you work in, you’ll also be on a team or maybe several teams. You and your team members work together, you co-operate, your work is interdependent, and your aim is to achieve a purpose or a goal.

You also contribute to the culture of the team. The ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour of individual team members have an impact on other members of the team. And team and workplace culture effects people’s sense of belonging, their growth, their ability to relate to one another, and their self-esteem.

We take cues from one another all the time. Whether you are up the front or a member of a team, you will influence and affect your team’s culture. Using these five tactics will help make your team a highly productive A-Team.

1. Purpose and goals

Knowing where the project is heading is unarguably necessary for everyone on the team. Not just at the beginning of the project, but throughout the project.

The goals, the outcomes, and how the project aligns to the purpose of the organisation are points of reference which we often forget when they are involved in the day-to-day details of getting things done.

Talking about what you are aiming to achieve frequently is essential to keep them top of mind and reinforce their importance.

Use your goals and outcomes as you work. When you are planning activities within the project, think about the activity in the context of the goals and outcomes. When problems arise, and solutions are being considered, avoid going off on a tangent by checking your solutions against the goals and outcomes you’re aiming for.

“Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

John F. Kennedy.

2. Happiness and good personal relationships

Happiness is important to us. It isn’t just a passing emotion, but a deep sense of our state of being, and that we are doing well. It has a positive effect on our health, our relationships, and our performance. It helps us cope effectively with difficulties and challenges. And, when our relationships and connections with people provide meaning and support, our feelings of self-worth increase.

So, investing in a happy team with good personal relationships among team members will help the team do its job well.

In 2013, CBS news reported that Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report found widespread disinterest and unhappiness in workplaces and estimated that the effect on company performance cost the U.S. $450 billion to $550 billion a year. Then in 2015, a study in the UK induced a happy mood in randomly selected study participants. Demonstrating that even when happiness is induced by seeing a comedy clip or having drinks and snacks increases productivity by around 12%, compared to not being made happier.

Underestimating the value of social interaction within your team can undermine your attempts to generate greater productivity. Friendships at work, chat between colleagues that makes a coffee break a bit longer, social activities, informal meetings, laughter and some fun can all set people up to do their best work producing better outcomes.

3. Training and Learning

Shutting down the opportunity to explore new ideas or rejecting and criticising people with new ideas will breed attitudes and a culture that limit growth, innovation, and creating competitive advantage.

Conversely, guiding people and providing opportunities to learn and grow has positive effects. The opportunity to learn and grow is one of twelve dimensions that Gallup’s multiyear research on the health of the workplace identified as a key to employee retention, productivity and profitability. It also builds trust, and a sense of never quite being satisfied with the way things are being done now. Driving the search for better more efficient and productive ways to work.

It requires time, effort, and resources to help people to be and do their best. Encouraging them to develop. Helping them to identify what they do best. Providing training, as well as time and space to learn as they work. Talking to them about their progress and supporting them as they refine abstract ideas into something defined and executable which will be useful.

Learning and growing requires a worker to take risks. Stepping outside what is familiar to them and being brave enough to challenge the status quo. To let workers truly learn and grow, it must go hand-in-hand empowerment and responsibility.

4. Empowerment and responsibility

By creating conditions in which the beneficial combination of learning, growth, and empowerment can flourish you will dramatically improve productivity. While staff, stifled by rigid, old-fashioned management models, lacking the power to act or the opportunity to take responsibility will create little value from training and learning investments.

Let people do their job. By making decisions and participating in decision-making processes they will grow, bringing more innovative ideas and greater depth and breadth of perspective and to major decisions.

Give team members more authority by trusting them and making them accountable. Empowering them with fair and useful performance reviews, by modelling the attitudes and behaviours you expect from them, encouraging and fostering their ability to make the decisions they own. Then back them up; by being open and available to help them and using their errors to help them learn from the experience.

Autonomy is a motivator. Accountability is the guidelines and expectations you set with them. Make them accountable without generating fear and you will truly empower them.

“Joy is the feeling of one’s power increasing.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

5. Collaboration, sharing, and flexibility

The members of your A-Team want to learn and improve themselves. They’ll be resilient when they face the uncertainty and changes a BPI or CI program brings. However, you can add to their sense of belonging, reduce anxiety, and add to productivity by getting them working more closely together.

Getting a team to share knowledge and information, tricks that save time, and ideas will take encouragement. As will getting them to understand that collaboration is more than interdependent work activities flowing smoothly from one person to another.

Encouraging sharing will help build their personal relationships and their understanding of the effort they each make towards the team’s goals. Opening the door for more collaboration, as they learn about each other and the strengths they each have to offer.

Their growing understanding of each other, and the work they each do will increase flexibility within the team. When the unexpected occurs, they will adapt more quickly, and accommodate modifications and changes more easily.

Make it all work together

It is obvious that there are strong links between each of these tactics. One tactic alone won’t make a difference. And you need to provide many other things, such as appropriate materials and equipment, to make the team successful.

Never forget that people, with all their fears and foibles, will always be critical to a project’s success. Creating an environment which prepares and positions them well to do the work, is the key to individual and team success.

References

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/dsgroi/impact/hp_briefing.pdf

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=74076 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/03/why-does-happiness-matter

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-most-americans-unhappy-at-work/ https://news.gallup.com/reports/199961/7.aspx?utm_source=SOAW&utm_campaign=StateofAmericanWorkplace&utm_medium=2013SOAWreport .

Advanced technology meets operational efficiency

Pictures #1, 3 & 4 courtesy of LaserBond

Reducing the wear rates, maintenance and operating costs of production-vital components for its industrial customers is LaserBond’s mission. Then success and their plans to grow called for some operational changes.

During a site visit hosted by Matthew Twist and Wayne Hooper, members of the Performance Drivers Consortium found the combination of LaserBond’s use of advanced technologies and Lean practices offered them many new ideas.

LaserBond’s Smeaton Grange facility is a manufacturing and an R & D facility. Research, development and implementation of advanced surface-engineering techniques drives LaserBond’s ability to deliver great products. However, to improve the growth of the business they embarked on a Lean transformation in 2014 with assistance from Performance Drivers.

Realising that increasing staffing and providing more space was not automatically creating greater efficiency or maximising growth. Guidance and facilitation from Performance Drivers saw them challenge their thinking, identify what needed to change, and implement a proven methodology to deliver workable, practical, and sustainable solutions.

Mentoring is helping the LaserBond team continue improving their processes. Optimising the capacity and capability of their staff and facilities, improving efficiency, and creating greater growth. The visiting Consortium members saw the Lean practices they have put in place, including various applications of the 5S methodology. And the LaserBond team’s pride, passion, and desire to succeed was very apparent to them too.

Consortium site visits provide the host with the opportunity to get feedback from site visitors. As one participant said, it’s a great process as many eyes find significant opportunities the host can consider. During this site visit the Consortium members told us they got great value too. From learning about laser welding and other interesting uses of technology to the consensus view that seeing LaserBond’s operation and use of Lean with these technologies gave them food for thought and was an excellent use of their time.

Find out more about the benefits of joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

Communications plan templates and tools.

A communication plan helps guide your project’s communication activities, ensuring you are connecting them to the objectives of your project and actively engaging all your stakeholders in the changes which will occur.

Preparing the plan involves articulating the ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘why’ of the project. Stating your communication objectives, developing your key messages, identifying who you will be targeting in your audience, and how and when you will communicate with them.

This communication plan framework can scale to fit projects of different sizes. You will find tips and examples in the template too. However, the most important factor is creating communications which engage and address the information needs of your audience.

Begin with audience analysis

Starting by thinking about people is the best way to develop your communications plan. The communication objectives and organisational details will flow from clarifying who you will be communicating with, why you are communicating with them, and what you want to communicate to them.

Break your audience into groups or segments according to the different interactions and relationships they will have with the change process or the project.

Some audience segments could be just one person, they could be internal or from outside the organisation. Target segments could be senior management, heads of department, high value customers, suppliers, government authorities, or the local community. You could even have a segment for everyone else who works in the organisation and won’t be affected by the project’s outcomes.

Brainstorm all the internal and external audience segments you will need to contact during your project and put your analysis of them into this template. It can be just a working document or included in your communications plan as an appendix.

The communications plan

Using your audience analysis to help you, work your way through the sections of the communications plan.

Section 1: Background

Briefly describe the situation and why the organisation is undertaking the project.

Customer expectations and competitive forces have increased. Now we need to focus on increasing our manufacturing productivity to deliver faster and reduce our costs.

Section 2: Objectives

There are two levels of objectives in a communications plan. The overarching objectives for the whole plan and the objectives for each communication activity within the plan. The higher-level overarching objectives recorded in this section will typically be about:

Building awareness of a projectSecuring the commitment of stakeholders Influencing attitudes and behavioursEncouraging participation Keeping people informedManaging the announcement difficult changes like facility closures and staff reductions

Section 3: Key messages

Messages are the words that help you deliver your story. They help you focus your communication and keep it consistent.

You‘re selling an idea, so you need to be persuasive, using authority, emotion, and reason, to appeal to your audience.

A message is usually 1-3 sentences. You should have a list of key messages that will be constantly repeated. Make them clear, jargon-free, remove technical language, and make sure they are relevant. You will get about 7 seconds of people’s attention, so keep them concise too.

Key message: Re-organising our manufacturing processes will increase productivity and the success of the business.

Supporting messages:

We will do this by reducing waste and installing new equipment to eliminate repetitive manual workManufacturing team members will have some changes in their duties and training will be provided if necessary to help them contribute to increasing productivity.Customers will benefit as orders will be delivered faster.

These messages will be used by different levels of management to maintain consistency when communicating about the project. However, the detail and tone will differ. Staff want to hear from senior managers and ask them questions, but the conversations they have with their direct manager will be more detailed. The communication by direct managers is very important, as it is very influential and more trusted than other sources of information.

Section 4: The communications matrix

A communications matrix is simply a way of organising your communications action plan. The structure of the matrix helps you think about what needs to be done and provide all the necessary details. It is also a document you can share with key stakeholders.

The communications matrix provides the details for creating the communication and is used with the schedule. The schedule triggers when activity will occur. With all the actions in the plan entered when they will occur, including each instance of monthly progress reports and other communications actions which are delivered more than once.

Communication activities and channels.

Section 5: The communications schedule

A communications matrix is simply a way of organising your communications action plan. The structure of the matrix helps you think about what needs to be done and provide all the necessary details. It is also a document you can share with key stakeholders.

Feedback and evaluation

Like any element of a project, the communications program should be included in the post-project evaluation.

However, it is more valuable to collect feedback and evaluate communication activities during the project. This will tell you if you are communicating effectively or if you need to try different ways to get the message across. If you don’t the whole project could suffer.

References http://www.bos.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Change-Communication-Playbook.-Electronic.pdf https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=chrreports https://rapidbi.com/write-internal-communications-plan-strategy/

10 Principles for good communications planning.

An organisational change project, or any other project, will need good communication to effectively engage people in the process. Remember, time after time, people are found to be the most important factor in the success of any project. Neglecting their need to know about and understand what is happening would simply undermine your efforts to make the changes your organisation needs.

Thoughtfully preparing a communications plan will help you reduce the feelings of fear and insecurity which are a natural reaction to change. Allowing those feelings to flourish has a negative effect on productivity and acceptance of proposed changes. Research by Gallup estimates lower productivity from disengaged workers generates losses of more than $24 million annually in Australia.

Therefore, planning a communications program which will provide your team and the wider organisation with information and answers which manage their perceptions and expectations is a good use of your time.

Whether your project is a whole of organisation cultural change program or a productivity improvement program in one section of your operations, you will need to communicate. Aim for a professional, organised, and respectful program which treats anyone who is negatively affected by the changes with dignity, while maintaining everyone else’s sense of belonging by keeping them appropriately involved and informed.

Start your planning process with these ten principles in mind. Applying them as you work through building your plan. In How to write a communications plan. Part 2, we will give you some tools and templates for writing up your plan.

Ten principles for good communications planning

1. Clearly define the purpose of your communication.

People will need to relate to the vision for the project and understand their part in it. To help them see, hear, and feel the vision you will need to deliver more than just a direction.

Saying this is where we are going, will need to be supported with what, why, and why now, as well as the benefits of the project, which might be financial, technological, organisational, or people related.

You need to develop the story you are going to communicate. Being clear about how your project will affect your audience and what you want them to do. Giving a clear explanation about why the change is needed, the importance of acting quickly, building their confidence in the value of the project, and reducing uncertainty.

Developing your project story will help you create messages for each stage of the project which link to the vision and business drivers for the change. Helping your audience to process and understand what is happening.

2. Always remembers that youʻre ahead of everyone else on the journey you are telling them about.

Overlooking the fact that you have been thinking about the project for a while is an easy trap to fall into. You’ve had time to process what the impact of the project will be. You are also engaged in organising what will happen, which gives you a sense of control over future events.

Take a step back each time you are communicating about the project and walk in your audience’s shoes. Think about the emotional impact the messages will have on them, what they will be thinking, and the questions they will have about how it affects them.

3. Aim to help people through the change rather than get them onboard after the event.

Use the opportunity to bring people along with you. Projects don’t happen quickly, they take numerous steps and detailed organisation. In the time between the project kick-off and implementation involving them they will forget your well thought through messages. Unless you show them how the project is having an impact.

Tell them about each change, the successes that are happening, examples of the benefits you told them about being achieved.

Build their belief in the process and their willingness to tackle the challenges.

4. Use leaders to communicate.

Managing a project doesn’t mean that you do all the communicating. People want to hear from the leaders they are familiar with, as the chart below shows. You need to work with the leaders who are the most appropriate people to deliver the message.

Leaders in senior management who are credible, committed to the objectives of the project, and who the staff expect to hear from as an authority figure in the organisation.Frontline managers whose existing relationship with their teams means they are well placed to deliver more detail, listen to feedback, and reinforce the messages delivered by senior managers.Advocates/evangelists/thought leaders/influencers who are energised by the changes the project will bring, and as one of the team have more casual opportunities to support understanding and acceptance of the project’s messages.

Prepare these people to be part of the communication program. Brief them all on the key messages that need to be delivered. Coach them on how to deliver those messages. Involve them in the planning, assessing, and adjusting of the communications program.

Frontline managers have a high level of influence on their teams and have a particular role to play in getting people onboard. Prepare them with skills to; listen empathetically to their team’s concerns, help team members reframe their thinking and beliefs, and support and reinforce the adoption of new work practices and behaviour. Remind them, that they are influential and that their attitudes and behaviour will have a significant impact on how their team perceives the change process.

5. Communicate early.

When you are kicking off a project and you don’t have all the answers it’s tempting to think you should wait until you have more information to share.

Silence is dangerous, it invites speculation. It is much better to communicate what has been decided, what is intended to happen, and what further information will be forthcoming as decisions are made or events occur.

6. Communicate in-person.

Face-to-face communication is very important. Kicking off a project with an email announcement wastes an opportunity to build buy-in and overcome fear and suspicion.

A CEO speaking at a company-wide meeting delivers not only the words of the messages, but also all the non-verbal signals which we use to interpret what is meant and how important it is. Delivering the message in-person also invites people to ask questions and provide their ideas and views.

Communicating in-person is a tool for opening-up communication, increasing engagement and feedback.

7. Provide opportunities for two-way communication.

Two-way communication can be achieved in-person and through other communication channels. Online forums, invitations in project newsletters to submit ideas, and surveys are just a few ideas. Workshops, lunchtime sessions and other in-person communications haves the advantage of providing answers in real-time.

Having feedback loops in your communications gives employees the opportunities to participate, air their concerns, give feedback, and ask questions. Their input and participation will let you know how they are hearing and interpreting your messages. Giving insights which will allow you to improve and refine your communications.

8. Demonstrate that everyone in the organisation is involved.

Your project may be focused on changing the efficiency of the warehouse, but it affects the whole organisation.

A reduction in costs improves the bottom line. Improvement in despatch times and accuracy reduces customer inquiries. These outcomes have an impact on the success of the organisation, job security, and the daily work experiences of employees.

9. Communicate consistently.

Delivering your messages consistently, again and again, ensures that it is heard, and the audience has the chance to think about it and take in the details.

When we learn about a change at work, our first thought is how will we be affected. Distracting us from other aspects of the message which we need know about. Repeating the key messages consistently and often, at different times, and in different forms will help your audience grasp all the details.

Consistency also prevents confusion. At every level of communication, through every channel, and over time it is best to keep your key messages consistent.

If you need to change your key messages, then step your audience through the change. Think about the way branded products change their identity. The packaging stays largely the same, and elements of the new brand identity are gradually introduced. Over time colours, names, shapes, and typography subtly alter the product, but not so much that you cannot recognise the product on the shelf.

10. Continue to communicate throughout the project.

Ongoing consistent communication is the key to maintaining momentum. Interest and engagement will flag without regular communication demonstrating things are happening, progress is being made, and there is determination to achieve the objective.

Where to find more help

Calling on others for help is a good idea. Who is responsible for internal communication? They will have policy, resources, and experience which could save you time and effort.

Human resources, marketing, or the chief executive’s office are places to check with.

Previous projects could provide insights too. Were there successful approaches to communication or lessons learnt that you should apply.

Next post : How to write a communications plan. Part 2. - Communications plan templates and tools.

References

https://www.prosci.com/change-management/thought-leadership-library/change-management-communication-checklist https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=chrreports

A checklist for project success

Managing any project requires optimising three interwoven factors; time, cost, and quality. At this fundamental level all projects are the same, the myriad of project details is where the differences lie.

Project goals range from simple to extremely complex. The purpose of a project might be to manage change, work on a process, develop a product, or undertake construction. Industry, workplace culture, and other differences have an impact too.

Many people start a project thinking they have considered everything and there won’t be any major issues to deal with. Then later, when things go awry it’s external factors that get the blame. It is rarely external factors causing the failures, delays and over-runs in a project. Doing a detailed analysis of many projects showed us that in 90% of cases, internal factors including people, processes and controls cause the issues.

Using a proven set of principles is how projects are successfully managed. Combining a thoughtful approach and thorough preparation sets up a project well for resolving the challenges, issues, problems, and risks which will threaten to derail it in every phase, from initiation through start up, planning, execution, and closure, to post-completion evaluation.

Getting started on your project

We all know the challenge of starting with a blank piece of paper. While projects rarely start without a problem to solve or an innovative idea they are always challenging to plan and organise.

There are so many decisions to be made, people to get on board, supplies and expertise to be brought in, processes and plans to be put in place.

It is unlikely that a checklist could be developed to provide you with a complete guide to simply tick off each action for any project you undertake. So, use this checklist to get thinking about what, why, how, when, where, and who will be involved in your project. Let it prompt you to think beyond what it suggests, spark research you need to do, and help in deciding what you need to do, and do not need to do, to manage your project well.

A project planning checklist

Reminder: think about what, why, how, when, where, and who for each item.

Processes and plans

Processes and plans formalise your thinking about managing the project and communicating how the project will be managed. Prepare simple to the point processes and plans which say how you will do things, focusing on quality of information not quantity.

Scope management plan – including what is out of scopeChange control management planQuality management planRisk management planCompliance planCost/budget management planResource allocation planCommunication plan and matrixHuman resources planTraining planProcurement plan

Foundations

Your involvement in the project might commence before or after any one of these have been thought about. You may need to create them, refine them, or be lucky enough to be handed exactly what you need.

A draft project charter briefly describing the scope of the project and provide an overview of what will be doneStrategic alignment of the project with the organisation’s directionBusiness case for the projectApproval for the projectExecutive support and do people know that it mattersOrganisational history of projects or the subject of the project which it is relevant to considerFunding and authority to spendGovernance arrangements – executive sponsor, steering committee, etc

People

Co-ordination and leadership requirementsClarity of purpose, authority, delegations, and powersAccountability, KPIs, and performanceIdentify the stakeholders who need to be involved or informedIdentify and recruit the participants in the projectSecondments into a project roleOccasional participantsChampionsHired for the project or backfilling in other positionsAdministrative supportAdvisers, subject matter experts, and suppliersTraining to do project workTraining to implement project outcomesSuitable communication channelsRelationship management

Tools and resources

Project team IT requirements and accessProject management softwareWorkflow and collaboration softwareRecord keeping systemReporting tools – dashboards and other data presentationAccommodation and equipment

Communication

Project kick-off announcement to staff and a project team meetingProtocol for team communicationMeetings, on-on-ones, and other team communication eventsTask lists, assignment, briefing, tracking, monitoring, and reportingMonitoring and review, status, and progress reporting - expectations, templates etcStakeholder communicationKeeping the organisation informedCommunication with suppliersCustomer communication

Risk management and compliance

Finding and minimising risks is an ongoing project management task which needs to be incorporated into the project’s work plansIdentify key risks, mitigation, and contingency plans – internal and external risks, lack of skills, supply delays, competitor activity etcIdentification of compliance requirements – legislative and regulatory, professional standards, Australian Standards, quality management, contractual, organisational policies and procedures, etcQuality - set quality levels, how quality levels will be achieved, testing, auditing, etcNeed for inspections, approvals, or legal assistanceControls to monitor and manage risks and complianceDetermine if project risks should be included in the organisation’s risk plans and monitoringProtocols for risk and issue management and escalation

Checking your plan

Cross check the plan for completeness of entry into all relevant project planning documents, accounting for all necessary activities including management, issue resolution, quality, risk, supply, etcScrutinize dependencies for overlaps, adequacy of lags where needed, and inbound and outbound inter-project dependencies being accounted for.Review timing and availability – holidays and staff availability are accounted for, and workloads do not exceed the capacity or availability of project managers or staff.Check adequate lead times have been allowed on supply and approvals.Examine the adequacy and coverage of the project controlsAssess if contingencies are adequate to protect the critical path.

Don’t forget, as you review the list, to think in terms of what, why, how, when, where, and who will be involved in each aspect of your project.

References

http://www.projectmanagers.net/i/the-absolute-basics-of-project-management/

http://www.projectmanagers.net/i/the-best-practices-of-project-management/

https://www2a.cdc.gov/cdcup/library/checklists/CDC_UP_Project_Management_Plan_checklist.pdf

https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/media/mmuacuk/content/documents/bit/Project-Checklist-v6.pdf

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/local/2013/nr_130314_major_capital_investment_ch.pdf

https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Governance-checklist-fact-sheet-low-res.pdf

Using robots like Tesla or the Toyota way

Image courtesy of Tesla

The automotive industry has more industrial robots than any other. Kia claims massive productivity improvements in factories with more than 1,000 robots on assembly lines. Among leading car makers, paint and body shops which require constant repetition, consistent quality, and often present safety and ergonomic challenges, are mostly automated. And the contemporary threat of lights out automated factories without a human in sight would seem to be just around the corner.

Challenging the car manufacturing status quo

Maverick entrepreneur Elon Musk says to investors, "You really can't have people in the production line itself. Otherwise you'll automatically drop to people-speed."

He advocates the power of speed and thinks robots are too slow if you can see them when they are moving. Envisaging Tesla's factories as a machine to build a machine, he aims to build Tesla's Model 3 and other vehicles at speeds unseen among the other auto-makers.

Musk boldly announced the aim to produce 500,000 Model 3 vehicles in 2018. Subsequent statements by the company and press reports progressively reveal the lack of output from what is one of the most robotics-driven assembly lines in the world:

Only 260 cars are produced in the 2017 end of year quarterA sophisticated automated parts-conveyance system is installed in February 2018On 3 April Musk reports producing 2020 cars in 7 days, but he's pulling all-nighters and sleeping in the factory to drive the processBy 13 April they report producing 2000 cars a weekOn 16 April they announced a production halt to improve productionThey get rid of the entire automated parts-conveyance system by the end of AprilIn May there is a six-day stoppage to fix the assembly lineAn internal email announces a target of 6000 vehicles a week during JuneIn the end-of-financial year quarter they produce 1550 vehiclesOn 1 July Musk announces they produced 5000 vehicles in a week

Tesla is not the first car builder to ambitiously attempt leading-edge automation and pour money into the effort. In a drive to face down foreign competitors in the 1980s General Motors spent billions on advanced robotics to achieve lights out automated production, without seeing a return on investment.

Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.

Tweet by Elon Musk

Efficient production owes more to humans than robots

While Elon Musk is telling investors that Tesla will overcome people-speed with robotics, leading auto-makers Toyota, Mercedes, and Honda are working on striking the right balance between people and robots.

Research in a highly automated German car body production plant found as many as 20 to 30 human interventions per shift were needed to prevent major flaws in quality and productivity. Agile, cost effective, and high-quality operations in the automotive industry require adaptability and the ability to change quickly, and humans can be more flexible and capable than production line robots. They can reason, make decisions, and re-organise work faster than robots can be reprogrammed.

GM automated the Hamtramck plant in the 1980s. Compared to a Ford plant nearby with many fewer robots, the GM plant's industrial robots didn't eliminate the need for industrial workers. GM's plant employed 5,000 people, Ford's employed 3,700 and out-produced the GM factory by a wide margin.

Human labour also won in studies conducted by Toyota comparing the time it took people and machines to assemble a car.

Removing robots and using the human touch to return to the Toyota way

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda is looking to the 1970s to turnaround a growth fueled series of problems culminating in massive recalls and a US$1.2 billion Department of Justice fine in 2014 for deception about unintended acceleration problems in their cars.

Toyoda is turning priorities back towards the quality and efficiency which Taiichi Ohno combined to create the Toyota Production System - the precursor to Lean. For decades the system drove higher productivity and quality than competitors like GM, Ford, BMW and Mercedes. Now the Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) updates the system and company veteran Mitsuru Kawai, a former blue-collar worker who was working in the company in the Ohno era, is leading the implementation and supervising all in-house plants.

Expecting to reduce manufacturing expenditures by as much as 40% by looking backwards and returning to craftsmanship appears counter-intuitive, but Kawai tells Bloomberg, "We cannot simply depend on the machines that only repeat the same task over and over again. To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the skills to teach the machine.”

There is no vision to do away with robots at Toyota, but they are not the centrepiece of the production strategy. Kawai removed some robots from production lines and introduced more than 100 manual workspaces into Toyota's factories. He wants Toyota's workers to see robots as tools to enhance performance and to have the expertise to build a car, so they take a broad view of their responsibility to design improvements that contribute to consistently producing high-quality vehicles.

Undertaking the physical work of forging and making car parts has led to workers improving the production of axle beams, cutting the cost of making chassis parts, and reducing the length of the assembly line and waste in crankshaft production. The workers better use of materials and use of lean concepts fueled these results, which are being applied to new models' production lines.

“Humans should produce goods manually and make the process as simple as possible. Then when the process is thoroughly simplified, machines can take over. But rather than gigantic multi-function robots, we should use equipment that is adept at single simple purposes.”

Mitsuru Kawai, head of global manufacturing for Toyota

In 2017, Toyota invested US$1.3 billion implementing the TNGA platform in the large Georgetown, Kentucky plant. Every new vehicle on TNGA platform will fit the plant's production infrastructure. Simplifying model changeovers, and quick shifts in body-style and powertrain line-up, allowing production to match demand.

The production environment at Georgetown has been designed for human workers to be involved. Assembly-line ergonomics have been improved to make the job easier for workers, and enhance vehicle quality. Carriers raise and lower cars for optimal access as they move down the line, special devices assist line workers with trickier tasks, and brighter LED lighting has been installed in some areas.

When Tesla was installing its automated parts-conveyer in 2018, Toyota had already moved away from overhead conveyers, which used to carry engines to the assembly line. Moving pedestals now carry the engines, skating across the factory guided by electronic sensors in the floor. As a result, assembly line workspaces are less cluttered, so workers can move around more quickly and easily.

Plant requirements are also smaller reducing costs on construction, real estate, cooling, heating, and maintenance. New plants like one in Guanajuato, Mexico cost about 40% less to build than a traditional assembly plant. While at Georgetown, space will be freed up as the layout and logistics are optimised around the TNGA platform.

Toyota doesn't eschew the speed that Elon Musk sees as his competitive weapon. Wil James, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Kentucky says, “In our world, we see work in 55-second bursts, and we challenge our workers to chop a second or more off if they can. If we gain back 55 seconds throughout the factory, we can ultimately eliminate a job and move that worker to another slot where they can begin the innovation process over again. Humans are amazing at finding those stray seconds to remove.”

When Toyota was introducing robotics in the 1980s, it was redesigning its work systems at the same time and seeking ideas from workers. Today, it focuses on vehicle improvements; lighter components, greater economy of engine and vehicle models, and design that addresses performance and fuel efficiency, all offered at aggressively competitive prices.

Speaking with Fast Company Toyota's Wil James sums up the importance of human efforts to the company, “Our automation ratio today is no higher than it was 15 years ago. Machines are good for repetitive things, but they can’t improve their own efficiency or the quality of their work. Only people can.”

Robots: Leading vehicle makers find limits

Toyota is not alone in finding that human touch and reasoning have advantages over automated alternatives.

Markus Schaefer, production chief at Mercedes-Benz told Bloomberg in 2016, “Robots can’t deal with the degree of individualisation and the many variants that we have today. We’re saving money and safeguarding our future by employing more people.”

Mercedes-Benz has replaced robots to take advantage of the adaptability and flexibility of humans, as machines can't work with the complexity and pace of change involved in delivering high levels of vehicle customisation.

Tom Shoupe, the chief operating officer of Honda’s Ohio manufacturing unit which transforms 3 million parts into 1,900 finished vehicles each day, says “We can’t find anything to take the place of the human touch and of human senses like sight, hearing and smell”

Until systems cognition, dexterity, and sensory skills develop further, automation and AI won't exceed many human capabilities and a factory without humans in the production line seems remote for complex products.

Referenceshttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/602436/teslas-next-broken-promise/https://theconversation.com/teslas-problem-overestimating-automation-underestimating-humans-95388https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/05/04/musk-initiates-climbdown-from-teslas-high-horse-production-revolution-postponed/#7a5029bb378fhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/984882630947753984http://www.autonews.com

What kind of project management do you need?

Strategic alignment of business objectives with projects, project prioritization, value management, and benefit realisation are all outcomes any business would want to achieve from the projects they initiate.

Is there a need for a role or an office in your business with responsibility for achieving these outcomes, or can they be achieved without a function and staff dedicated to project management?

Different models for project management in an organisation

Forming a project team, bringing in external expertise needed during the project, integrating project-driven changes into the existing operations, then ending the project is a common approach. It fits with the Association for Project Management and the Project Management Institute's definition of a project as a unique and transient or temporary endeavour.

However, there is advocacy for a model where a permanent project management function is established in a business. Arguments for this model range from the size of an organisation, to its geographic dispersion, and whether there is a rapid pace of change driving more project work.

The PMO, a project or program management officer or office, and the EPMO, an enterprise program management officer or office, are the proposed means of embedding project management into an organisation. Views on what PMOs and EPMOs do vary. Voices from IT, engineering, project management, and other disciplines are all involved in the conversation. It appears that one-size does not fit all:

The PMO: - you will find that some think of a PMO as being responsible for a project. For others, it is an office that supports a project by doing the paperwork, keeping the records, and keeping track of things. Then there are those who use the term for a position or unit responsible for training and development, standardisation, resource management, communication and reporting for projects and programs in part of or across the entire organisation.

The EPMO: - is generally seen as a strategic role involved in decision-making about priorities, investment, and risk management, most often complementing the PMO(s) role. They communicate with the senior levels of the organisation, but some believe should sit in the senior levels of the organisation. Their other responsibilities might include co-ordinating business-wide project management, project governance, maintaining project portfolio management best practices, mentoring, and standardising tools and processes.

What is important, is that the way a business organises project management achieves the outcomes the business needs, effectively and efficiently.

Making the best decision for your business means considering some important factors before choosing between the options of putting project teams in place as needed or establishing permanent project management in the organisational structure.

The value of project management offices (PMOs) and enterprise project management offices (EPMOs) has been questioned for many years.

Honkanen, D. J. (2011). The EPMO: strategy to execution.

Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2011—North America, Dallas, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Three factors to consider in developing your model for project management

1. Technical and project management skills

The most important factor to consider is the skills needed to deliver a project successfully.

Boeing's 787 project illustrates the importance of people and expertise to a project. The project was fraught with problems, taking several attempts to recruit the right project manager to successfully complete it. The successful project manager, Scott Fancher, possessed skills and knowledge relevant to both the technical challenges and organising the project resources and work.

When the project was completed Fancher moved on to another role becoming the leader of the next major Boeing development project for the 777 aircraft. His colleague Larry Loftis, an expert in production operations, became the manager of the 787 program in its production phase.

Think about what is necessary for your business to successfully and efficiently manage its projects and whether project management is best approached; with your existing team, by adding new roles to your team, or bringing in expertise when needed:

In your business, are technical skills and knowledge needed to be able to manage projects effectively? Can the necessary skills and knowledge be embodied in one or a few people, or does the scope of the business's operations make this difficult?Consider previous projects, do they demonstrate an existing internal strength in project management skills? Do you have all the necessary project management expertise, technical skills and knowledge, and business acumen, or are there weaknesses you need to overcome? What is the business going to face in the near-term and longer-term future – economic conditions, market changes, and other external forces – will these forces change the skills and knowledge needed or the frequency and amount of project work?

In his paper, A Project Manager's Lessons Learned, Jerry Madden an Associate Director at NASA writes

"The source of most problems is people but damned if they will admit it",

then immediately acknowledges

"Most managers succeed on the strength and skill of their staff."

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/293253main_62682main_jerry_madden_forum7.pdf

Undoubtedly, having the right expertise in place at the right time is important and embedding project knowledge and skills in the organisation is advantageous. But, apart from skills and knowledge there is also organisational culture and practices to consider.

2. Taking responsibility

Running a project is a temporary activity involving implementation of any changes in work practice into the ongoing operation of a business. In the temporary project team model, responsibility is clearly handed over and the project manager isn't expected to be involved any further when the project concludes. With a permanent project management function in place, who is responsible for what and when may not be quite as clear.

When Scott Fancher handed over to Larry Loftis, the Boeing 787 program went from being a project developing how the aircraft would be built, to being a production process with Lean being used to refine it. Boeing had a culture which drew a line in the sand with responsibility clearly handed over and no-one doubting that continuous improvement was everybody's responsibility.

Culturally, in your organisation, is taking responsibility a strongly held value? Would having a permanent function responsible for project management reduce the wider team's sense of responsibility and engagement with projects? How well would a PMO or EPMO be accepted if they set project standards and protocols, supported, and encouraged, rather than doing?

3. Standardisation and controls

Large organisations use standardised financial and sales reporting to deliver information which can be used quickly and efficiently for monitoring the business. Intranets, workflow software, and meetings are standard ways to keep information flowing. Specific functions own the reporting, it's a part of their wider responsibilities. However, internal information flows are less function specific. IT looks after the infrastructure, HR has a policy and protocols role, marketing looks after the content, and the CEO and senior executives are key players.

Project management policy, protocols, and governance, could be managed as a cross-functional responsibility or among other project management responsibilities it might require staff. Weigh the pros and cons for your organisation:

Do you have multiple projects which need to supply better quality more comparable information to senior management?Is there a culture of cross-functional collaboration in the business?Do members of the senior executive support projects and contribute to an organisation-wide understanding of the connection between company strategy and individual projects?Does your organisation value striving for best practice?Does the size and geographic dispersion of the business create a need for leadership and co-ordination?Will your organisation's culture support sharing a common set of project management protocols and practices without having a PMO or EPMO?

Project management in your business

The unique circumstances of each business will influence whether or not it is strategically advantageous to structurally formalise or take a more flexible approach to project management. Achieving the business's objectives with a project management approach which is the least costly and most beneficial to the business is what is needed.

Whether you bring in project managers with relevant expertise, have a staff or external project manager as an adviser to internal leaders, or permanent project management staff, it is critical to avoid overlapping responsibilities and establish who has the final say.

Bibliography

Moving better with Continuous Improvement.

Rondo manufactures and supplies a wide range of lighter gauge rolled formed steel products and systems, selling these products primarily to the construction industry in Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. The business has a manufacturing and warehousing facility at Erskine Park in western Sydney and distribution warehouses interstate, as well as operations in New Zealand and Malaysia.

”"Encouraging to see how continuous upgrades to plant and equipment have resulted in vast output improvements."

Michael Riggien, Alsco

During the site tour in Rondo's state-of-the-art facility at Erskine Park, visitors saw how layout and movement play a role in optimising the productivity of this facility. Rondo has minimised travel time across production, storage and delivery areas by optimising factory layout in a number of time saving initiatives.

PDC visitors were impressed by how Rondo applied what they learned to improve further, as well as taking on board improvement opportunities identified by team members looking at the operation from a different perspective.

In the finished goods area, attendees were shown some advanced vehicle loading technology which demonstrates the business's innovative approach to increasing its capabilities.

This system which lifts and loads the metal products onto trucks caught the attention of the site visitors. It was developed by a member of the Rondo team and is saving a significant amount of time in loading the finished goods and removes the use of forklifts for loading, delivering higher levels of safety in the area too.

Rondo’s highly flexible, versatile, and innovative approach to developing their manufacturing capabilities includes using Visual Management, 5S, and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) among other Lean methodologies.

The site visitors noting it was a clean and well organised site, striving to continuously improve, and using performance indicators effectively to drive the business to succeed.

Find out more about the benefits of joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

Anticipate before you automate

Using innovative approaches to make your business more efficient generates energy and excitement and right now automation is the business innovation trend which is getting people excited. Automation can save time, reduce the resources needed in a process, remove human error, and reduce expenses.

Applying automation isn’t a silver bullet for inefficiency. It is a set of tools. Software, robots, machine-learning, and analytics are tools which when applied effectively handle repetitive, replicable, and routine tasks, to contribute to increasing productivity.

So, what do you need to do before automating your processes?

1. Consider the suitability of automation

Automation can be a drastic change for organisations and for customers. Your focus might be on the strategic advantages and operational benefits, but there are other considerations:

Customers need to be satisfied with their relationship and interactions with the businessWill workers capabilities be used effectively in conjunction with automated systems? What level of reliability and ease of use is needed for an automated system to be suitable for customer use?How will you maintain a continuous improvement approach with automated processes?

Decisions will need to be made about what is best handled by humans and if, when, and how, people will take over the work of an automated system.

The suitability of a process for automation also needs to include consideration of the human experience. Think about the psychological, aesthetic, physical, and other impacts on the people involved in the process to ensure that automation is a suitable approach.

TIP: Sometimes an automated process improvement is suitable because improvement can’t be achieved without it.

2. Improve as you automate

How you approach setting your automation goals will make a difference.

Automating a process can improve a process, but to be most effective improve the process and use automation as the means of achieving the improvement.

Automating an existing process can remove human error in the process, speed the process up, and increase productivity. It will also automate any inefficiencies in the process. Improving the process as well as applying automation will deliver a twofold improvement, reaping the efficiencies of a better process as well as the efficiency gains automation will deliver.

New technologies that promise double-digit or even triple-digit same-year returns should rightfully be viewed

with skepticism. But our experience shows that the promise of intelligent process automation is real if executives

carefully consider and understand the drivers of opportunity and incorporate them effectively with the other

approaches and capabilities that drive the next-generation operating model.

McKinsey

3. Review your business rules

Business rules can simply be accepted as the way we do things and overlooked as a factor in improving productivity.

Examine your business rules for any repetitive routine work, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking of that as only manual work. Use of any knowledge or skill repetitively in a routine could have potential for automation.

Look for parts of your processes requiring a management decision or an expert’s participation. There may be opportunities here to codify a decision-making process in an automated system. Is the manager making their decision based on some rules of thumb which could be captured and automated? Does the expert use rules or standards which could be codified and applied by a system, reducing or eliminating the review or inspection work they need to do within a process?

The finance and insurance sector has shown how well-developed business rules backed by expert knowledge can be used to automate data driven decision-making. Insurance and financial services transactions routinely involve systems which automate financial analysis, risk assessment, and credit checking. From a process of quoting and purchasing insurance online, to a telephone or face-to-face interaction with a customer service officer using an expert decision-making system, knowledge and skills have been captured in automated processes.

4. Assess the effect of automation on customer value

Double check that automating your processes will deliver what your customer values.

Now think about the type of relationship you have with your customers and the complexity of the problem you solve for them. Will automation reduce customer value in any way?

E-commerce saw a major shift in customer service. With many businesses designing customer facing processes limiting and controlling customer’s ability to communicate with them. Service channels became telephone systems with endless menus, robots which can’t understand you, online self-help, or email as the only channel of contact.

Ease of access online added to customer value when everything ran smoothly. However, the consequence of businesses distancing themselves from the customer is an erosion of customer value. If a problem occurs and it is difficult to get it attended to, the value of

ease of online access is eroded too.

So, check that the cost and waste reductions achieved by automation do not have consequences for your customers.

5. Resourcing and risks

Trying to automate everything at once is risky. Increasing the potential for disruption and making it more difficult to isolate and fix issues. Taking a task view has risks too. Focusing on automating one task can overlook the consequences of the change for other parts of the end-to-end operation.

Regardless of your approach, forethought and preparation are necessary to effectively manage the complex mix of existing systems, unfamiliar technology, people issues, and high expectations.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Abraham Lincoln

There are many things to do and think about to manage the risks inherent in such a change. As businesses have made more and more use of IT, the challenge has been to reduce project failure rates. This experience is one to learn from and apply to automating your processes with preparation such as:

Getting the right knowledge and skill sets onboard to plan and execute the automation of your processes Identifying potential vendors and defining the type of working relationship you want with them, including the ongoing support you would expect.

Digitised automation is gradually changing how physical processes are performed. By combining the mechanical and the digital and altering the control of machines, the role of workers is shifted from from operator to overseer, interventionist, or specialist participant in the process.

Approaching the automation of business processes to create effective interaction between human, mechanical, and digital elements definitely takes more than selecting some software.

References

Intelligent process automation: The engine at the core of the next-generation operating model. By Federico Berruti, Graeme Nixon, Giambattista Taglioni, and Rob Whiteman March 2017 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/intelligent-process-automation-the-engine-at-the-core-of-the-next-generation-operating-model

Before Automating Your Company’s Processes, Find Ways to Improve Them. Thomas H. Davenport David Brain JUNE 13, 2018 https://hbr.org/2018/06/before-automating-your-companys-processes-find-ways-to-improve-them

Getting better results with continuous team feedback

Giving and receiving feedback is uncomfortable for most people but offers great opportunities for developing higher levels of performance. By making feedback an integral part of your team and stakeholder communication you will complete the open communication cycle and avoid many of the pitfalls that undermine the success of a project.

Saving feedback to team members for their performance reviews vastly under-utilises its potential, while building feedback into your project communication approach will help you:

Manage team members from different areas of the organisation Effectively integrate and utilise contractors and external subject matter expertsShape team culture and behaviourFoster learning and career aspirationsManage motivationKeep people and activities on trackResolve issues as they ariseAvoid schedule slippageAvoid project failure Be better prepared for formal performance reviews

Don’t overlook seeking and constructively receiving feedback for yourself, it is just as important. Helping you keep on top of emerging issues and allowing you to reflect and respond proactively.

"Effective communications leads to more successful projects, allowing organizations to become high performers completing an average of 80 percent of projects on time, on budget and meeting original goals.”

PMI Pulse of the Profession

Set yourself up for feedback success

Building a culture of open communication and setting a tone which fosters trust, involvement, clarity and flow of information, will provide a foundation for making feedback an everyday occurrence. With frequent practice it will get easier. Building rapport between you, your team, and your stakeholders.

Everyday feedback is about achieving business goals by:

Helping increase individual’s productivity or efficiencyTeaching or facilitating skill development and behaviour changesSupporting individual’s ability to do their workRemoving roadblocksFinding the root cause of a problemEncouraging good performance and progressLearning more about an individual and how they work most effectively

Have a constructive approach to feedback. Avoid being a helicopter manager, expressing your frustrations, or falling into bias traps. Feedback must be appropriate and fair to be useful and effective.

Avoid succumbing to your biases

Your objectivity can be affected by your perceptions of a person. Take a moment before you give feedback to consider if your view of the situation is being influenced by any of these effects or biases.

The halo effect– a positive impression of the person affecting your judgmentThe leniency effect – judging everyone in a favourable lightThe severity effect– judging everyone harshlyThe same-as-me bias – being more favourable to those like youThe different-from-me bias – being harsher to those unlike youThe first impression bias– the ongoing perception of someone based on your first encounters

Adapted from: Effective Feedback in the Workplace. Richard A. Prayson, MD, MEd J. Jordi Rowe, MD Critical Values, Volume 10, Issue 3, 1 July 2017, Pages 24–27.

Effective feedback practices for project managers

Feedback can be for everything from acknowledging good work to helping a contractor settle in to the team, supporting someone working on something new to them, or handling real problems. In any circumstances, some forethought and a professional approach to giving feedback will get better results.

Prepare before giving feedback to a project team member:

Giving feedback to a project team member

Getting the most from receiving feedback

Being open to receiving feedback can help your personal performance, project performance, and make managing your team easier. Remember, how you behave as a communicator influences how information flows around you. If you encourage sharing opinions and views, listen and pay attention, are responsive and foster participation you will build open communication with your team. In amongst your interactions with the team will be plenty of feedback. The issues brought to you and any unusual emotion or attitudes should make you curious and thoughtful. Is there feedback here for you?

You can also ask for feedback. This can help you resolve uncertainty, maintain alignment with your manager’s thinking, and give you an opportunity to provide them with information you didn’t know they needed. Being open to receiving feedback takes more than just a willingness to ask for feedback. These three golden rules will help you constructively receive feedback:

Don’t be defensive – listen carefully to understand their concerns. Avoid justifying or explaining yourself.

Confirm that you have understood what they have said to you and ask questions to clarify anything you are uncertain about.

Look for a solution with them, agree how you will proceed, and thank them for their help.

The value of feedback

Research by PMI found that 13.5% of funds invested in projects are at risk and that 56% of those funds were at risk due to ineffective communications.

Feedback is the vital closing of the loop in effective communication. Well delivered, timely feedback which is helpful and actionable will contribute to a culture of open communication. Providing constructive feedback on an ongoing basis across a range of circumstances, from the quick to more complex or the positive to the corrective, will make the feedback process more familiar and less daunting for everyone.

None of us can read other people’s minds. We all need clarity and detail to understand what is expected of us and how to contribute productively. In a project environment with contractors and staff who don’t usually work together, feedback is great tool to help weld them together as a team and support their work towards the project’s goals.

Bibliography

PMI’s Pulse of the Profession In-Depth Report - The high cost of low performance: The essential role of communications. https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/the-essential-role-of-communications.pdf?sc_lang_temp=en

Effective Feedback in the Workplace. Richard A. Prayson, MD, MEd J. Jordi Rowe, MD Critical Values, Volume 10, Issue 3, 1 July 2017, Pages 24–27 https://doi.org/10.1093/crival/vax017

https://www.inc.com/stanford-business/how-to-get-better-at-giving-and-receiving-feedback.htmlHow to Get Better at Giving (and Receiving) Feedback: Good constructive criticism takes practice. By Deborah Petersen Stanford Graduate School of Business

Salmat’s warehousing and distribution facility at Prestons processes millions of pieces of field marketing material for delivery each week with processing volumes rising and falling by millions, week-by-week.

Lean and MOS tools are being used to optimise the capacity and capability of their facilities. However, what impressed the site visitors was the culture; a change which Salmat has achieved in three years. The site visitors noticed:

The trust placed in employeesThe help and support offered to employeesThe teamworkHow all the key people were brought togetherThe focus on process issues and not blaming peopleA great ambience, busy but calmPositive, engaged, happy staffGood relationships between staff

As one visitor put it, it was ‘pretty inspiring’. Cultural change is difficult, but culture is a key to the sustainability of a good work environment.

Salmat has found numerous benefits in having satisfied staff. The team is achieving great results. Among the things that contribute to their results are the sharing of ideas and roles, maintaining excellent reporting, and keeping meetings to a 15 minute limit.

”The passion management has for their Lean journey was very evident.’’

Richard McBurney, Millform

The journey for Salmat isn’t over. They are introducing more technology, as some site visitors noted it is a labour-intensive business with a lot of manual handling and potential for automation.

Find out more about the benefits of joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

Companies collaborate on the use of cyber-physical technology

Source: Siemens

In Australia, there has been a flurry of Industry 4.0 activity with consultation and collaboration between Government, peak industry bodies, and key industry players and innovators.

The impact of Industry 4.0 is expected to be significant. The key benefits will be productivity gains and improved competitiveness. But there are challenges to be addressed for industry to successfully transition to being highly digitalised. Australia's digital competitiveness may prove to be a challenge. In the World Economic Forum’s 2014 Global Information Technology Report, Australia was ranked at only 18th for overall network and digital readiness, with business usage, economic or social impact and affordability pulling the ranking down.

However, progress is being made. Businesses are collaborating to learn, develop more automated processes, successfully use advanced materials, and augment their capabilities with external expertise.

Industry 4.0 for competitive edge

Sutton Tools have embraced collaboration. Being one of the first Australian enterprises to participate in the “i-Manufacturing” internet-enabled manufacturing hub set up by the collaborative network, META. Then joining the Advanced Surface Solutions Facility (ASSF) and housing it’s world class tool coating machine, the Innova.

The expertise developed in these collaborations feeds into Sutton Tools manufacture of HSS and carbide, standard and custom cutting tools.

More than ten years ago Sutton Tools was prompted to transform itself by a foray into global markets, and the discovery that these markets demanded more than the company had to offer. Sutton Tools now has large markets in Europe and Asia, and the company has turned to digitalisation to keep competing with the best in the market.

Sutton Tools is actively taking on the challenges of Industry 4.0. Experimenting with low cost, DIY technology solutions, capturing and understanding the effect of small process changes, and capturing and using data to optimise use of the machines. The successes of this low-cost approach have included; sharing engineering data with remote stakeholders using cloud-based software with machines serving live data to wiki web pages. And overlaying a sensor network onto legacy machines to create a web-based production analysis board.

Sutton Tools technology manager Steve Dowey told the Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council that “It has been an interesting journey, and we are continuing it. But it is not as straightforward as it appears to be.“

Cost, security and skills are key challenges. He also discovered the volume of data, the amount of traffic, what to do with the data, and the data network needs to be carefully considered.

Transforming the automotive industry

Inspired by the need for technology-driven solutions in the automotive repair industry, Tradiebot Industries, will use automation to rapidly repair previously unrepairable plastic car parts.

Tradiebot Industries Founder Mario Dimovski says this will be done by inventing various aspects of what will be a world-first automated system which will revolutionise repairs of plastic components. It will use 3D printing technology, robotics, and complex materials to address issues ranging from material wastage to complex and restrictive design, and the limited availability of skilled labour.

Partnerships in the industry will help the new technology become the new normal. David Marino, CEO of the 45-site high quality repair specialist S.M.A.R.T Repairs says “We look forward to partnering with them to train and develop the next generation of automotive technicians.”

Dulux : A factory of the future arrives

The largest coatings factory in Australia and New Zealand sits on a 17 hectare site north of Melbourne. The purpose-built facility is state-of-the-art, using advanced automation and digitalisation. By 2019, Dulux will have invested A$165 million in its development and optimisation.

Commissioned in late 2017, the factory can produce approximately 100 million litres of paint each year. It is also capable of efficiently and economically producing a batch as small as one pallet or 100 litres of paint.

Specialty paint batches are now 1/50th of the size Dulux was previously able to produce and automated production processes have reduced small batch production time by more than 85%. From the order system through the manufacturing execution system, process control system, and testing to the filling and packaging line, everything is under digital control.

Manual process interventions are now rare compared to the 75,000 per annum in the past. Consistent high-quality paint is ensured with repeatable, accurate paint recipe production and minimal wastage.

The complex factory and it systems were developed by four main vendors in collaboration with Dulux. The technology being used not only providing manufacturing flexibility and efficiency, but also features that support continuous improvement.

Paperless production with electronic records ensures compliance and provides monitoring, tracking, and traceability as well as speeding up review and improvements. A virtual reality platform on the process water system can be accessed from a notebook or tablet in the field. It allows individual pieces of equipment to be labelled with maintenance records and data sheets, and maintenance processes, and emergency scenarios can be tested and practiced without potential damage.

During construction, the simulation platform was used for comprehensive testing and virtual commissioning of the plant’s automation applications and provided a realistic training environment. Allowing the factory to reach full production 50% faster.

Kevin Worrell, Project Director, Dulux Australia told Siemens’ customer magazine “We wanted to make sure that our new factory would be future-proofed to allow us to respond quickly to the latest trends, create new business opportunities and remain at the leading edge of paint manufacturing well into the future.”

Industry 4.0 in Australia

Australian companies are demonstrating that using Industry 4.0 cyber-physical automation concepts can be undertaken in many ways. Collaboration is proving to be a way to access and build knowledge and experience reducing the risks that accompany innovation. From German-Australian Cooperation on Industry 4.0 in the areas of ...

reference architectures, standards and normssupport for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) Industry 4.0 Testlabs security of networked systems, and work, education and training

... to first movers like Sutton Tools who are sharing their story at industry events, no-one is tackling the challenges alone.

Bibliography

The cyber-physical era is upon us

Source: Bosch Rexroth

If cloud computing, the Internet of Things, real-time sense-and-response technologies, cloud-based services, big data analytics, robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and other technologies could facilitate Lean manufacturing– would you ignore them?

“Taiichi Ohno may not have mapped out an IT infrastructure that incorporated predictive analytics and closed loop feedback channels with customers, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t embrace them now if he were updating his concepts for today’s manufacturer,” writes Robert Hart, publications editor for TRACC a value chain improvement solution provider. It’s easy to agree that the the innovator who drove Toyota’s process improvement methods would embrace new improvement opportunities.

How Lean and Industry 4.0 fit together

There is uncertainty about what Industry 4.0 will bring and a widely held regard for Lean’s ability to improve productivity and decrease costs.

While displacing Lean to use Industry 4.0 instead has been canvassed. This view has been tempered by the evolving nature of Industry 4.0, and recognising technology is part of solving efficiency problems. The emerging consensus is to maintain the benefits of Lean and simultaneously leverage Industry 4.0 technologies to overcome the limitations of current systems.

“Industry 4.0 can be integrated in Lean Production and beyond that improve Lean Production by increased integration of ICT.”

Kolberg and Zuhlke

Voices in industry are calling for a Lean with Industry 4.0 approach.

”Discussions going forward need to be more inclusive and integrated. More Lean and Industry 4.0, rather than Lean versus Industry 4.0.” says Peter Anthony, CEO at automotive parts manufacturer UGN Inc.

“We shouldn’t make sweeping changes in our process based on data alone, so it is important to maintain our lean manufacturing perspective alongside forward-looking Industry 4.0 intelligence,” says Anthony.

In the Bosch Connected World Blog, Stefanie Peitzker says “At Bosch, our recipe for sustainable success is to build on the tried and true and combine it with innovation. Lean production represents the tried and true and Industry 4.0 looks toward the future and therefore innovation.”

Digitally enabling the lean enterprise

Industry 4.0 can enable Lean. After all, the provision of management information is critical to Lean manufacturing. And the web-based digitalisation and automation of Industry 4.0 will deliver and use information to manage processes and their connections within factories and beyond with sales, suppliers, distribution, and customers.

In the Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, Sanders, Elangeswaran, and Wulfsberg tease out the correlation between Lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0. Looking at the current challenges in implementing Lean and finding solutions in Industry 4.0 technologies, which are summarised in the table below.

Understanding how to take advantage of Industry 4.0, or how to use it with Lean is the first step.

There is reason to pause for thought. During the 1990s and into this century many CRM system implementations failed to deliver benefits. The lessons learnt which apply to Lean production environments applying digitalisation are:

be certain it will solve a business problem and the root causes of the problem, increasing efficiency and adding value which contributes to KPIsoptimise processes before automation, automate to further optimise them, overcoming non-digital limitationsdon’t employ automation as a tool to change or control worker behaviour, focus on how data and automation can empower them to be more effective

Discussions among senior leaders in construction, automotive, aerospace, electronics, materials and printing sectors identify it is pertinent to consider the implications of:

Industry 4.0 technologies connecting the operational factory environment with the world outside, particularly customers, offers significant potential to understand and respond to customer’s needs more precisely. new data sources and predictive analysis tools providing forward-looking insight compared to the backward-looking measurement of performance most in use at present.

Start thinking about Lean with Industry 4.0 opportunities

Industry 4.0 technologies offer radical new options for a Lean production environment. New sources of data, new types of decision-making information, new connections for better communication, and cyber-physical system to advance to higher levels of value to customers and competitiveness.

To start thinking about the opportunities in your business consider these questions:

Where would better communication, information flow or real-time information flows make a difference – reducing decision-making time for production planning and control, reducing machine downtime, or connecting processes through the value stream more effectively?What gaps and inefficiencies could be bridged with the automation of manual work? What problems do you have in your highly optimised processes which are resisting being solved, could an Industry 4.0 technology help? Which processes need to be optimized further before applying automation?Could safety be improved by automating processes or using sensors to provide warnings?Would automation of the Lean tools you use be beneficial?Is it going to be more efficient to buy or build the capabilities to address any of the opportunities you identify to use Industry 4.0 technologies with Lean?What will your existing IT infrastructure support, what would need to be added or upgraded? - data networks, data storage, devices, systems, and security for an Internet and data enabled production environment.What risks do you see in any of the opportunities you have identified?

And, of course, as you generate ideas consider how employees should be involved and the implications for workplace culture.

Take advantage of Industry 4.0 technologies

The interplay between Lean and Industry 4.0 provides new ways to optimise flow through the entire value stream. From end-to-end there is an increasing range of technologies to help anticipate or predict issues and overcome them or react and fix them faster.

Businesses which have embraced Lean and have active Lean programs are well positioned to leverage Industry 4.0. With a good handle on their value streams and a culture of continuous improvement Industry 4.0 technologies present opportunities to make big improvements, getting customer’s attention and contributing to the bottom line.

Bibliography

Dennis Kolberg and Detlef Zühlke, Lean Automation enabled by Industry 4.0 Technologies. IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-3 (2015) 1870–1875. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896315005984

Adam Sanders, Chola Elangeswaran , Jens Wulfsberg Helmut-Schmidt-University, Institute of Production Engineering (Germany). Industry 4.0 Implies Lean Manufacturing: Research Activities in Industry 4.0 Function as Enablers for Lean Manufacturing. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management JIEM, 2016 – 9(3): 811-833 – Online ISSN: 2013-0953 – Print ISSN: 2013-8423 http://dx.doi.org/10.3926/jiem.1940 )

Managing changing work

It isn’t clear what the scope of relevant knowledge and skills will be to implement Industry 4.0. What is clear is that capabilities will need to be upgraded, supplemented, and expanded as the transition occurs.

Organisations which have undertaken significant changes or transformations know that people make the difference. Realising the benefits of Industry 4.0 will depend on effectively managing and developing people, and thinking about:

The roles of humans and machinesWorkers’ attitudes and expectationsUsing existing knowledgePeople factors and skill sets

The good news is that existing skill sets aren’t redundant, they can be built upon.

Building smart manufacturing on existing skill sets

In 2015 Carbon Revolution opened its new factory in the Geelong Technology Precinct employing many of its staff from companies such as Ford Australia, Alcoa and Qantas, which are all pulling out of Geelong.

The factory is the first in the world to supply mass-produced carbon fibre wheels as standard equipment for a major automaker. The cutting-edge one-piece carbon fibre wheels are fitted as standard equipment on Ford’s Shelby Mustang GT350R and are available for Ferrari’s 488 Pista.

Carbon Revolution’s advanced data driven processes

“The manufacturing process for the carbon fibre wheels begins with the creation of a preformed internal carbon structure, composed of precisely manufactured carbon strands arrayed into woven fabrics. This is then placed into a mold with an RFID chip embedded into its structure, so each wheel can be tracked through a quality assurance system. The structure is then infused with resin and cured at high temperatures.

As the wheel cures, 61 individual checks and more than 246,000 data points are logged before it’s released from the machine. To guarantee quality parts, the cured wheels are analysed using a 3D computerized tomography imaging process in which more than 18,000 X-ray images are taken.”

Engineers Australia

It is expected as technology advances and more automated processes reduce prices, carbon fibre wheels will be fitted to more of the 60 million new cars produced each year. Carbon Revolution plans to take advantage of this opportunity and grow by increasing its automation, maintaining its Australian headquarters as a development hub, and offering a dynamic career path to motivate employees to grow with them.

The roles of humans and machines in Industry 4.0 workplaces

The more predictable and physical any task is like processing financial transactions or freight, or where automation would provide superior performance over a human, the more feasible it is to automate the task.

Industrial environments mechanise, organise, and automate processes already. Humans are still needed and will be needed in future. The less expertise and decision-making in a role the more likely it is to change or disappear. Inevitably, Industry 4.0 will produce more work looking after machines and produce data which creates more analytical, planning, and decision-making work.

Overall, there will be better use of human effort. Through improvements in the interfaces used to control machines and with workers focused on using their expertise, creativity, and people skills. Skills which are difficult to automate.

Workers’ attitudes and expectations in a digitalising world

An attractive workplace is going to be one developing or demonstrating a culture that can adapt and provide employees of all ages with development opportunities relevant to a more automated and digitalised workplace.

When recruiting there is a need to consider workers’ career aspirations and work experience expectations as in future, skilled employees will do work that intelligent machines cannot do. With universities now teaching Industry 4.0 concepts and skills, new graduates will soon be entering businesses with different expectations of life working in production environments.

From leadership through management to staff roles, knowledge work will increase or change. During the transition re-organising work will need attention, including re-thinking training and career paths.

Using existing knowledge to tackle Industry 4.0 challenges

Consultation with high performing Australian businesses which have adopted new technology to improve productivity indicates that most are unsure about how to use internet and advanced technologies to improve productivity.

Recognising that current approaches to productivity improvement aren’t redundant is important. Business process improvement practices are a sound foundation to work from.

Processes which are already well optimised are good candidates to consider for further productivity improvement using digitalisation or automation. It is critical to assess the level of optimisation of processes and if a they are a good fit for a technology solution. Applying technology without having a strong underlying process could simply automate wastage. Other considerations are costs to benefits, the maturity of the technology solution, and the effect on the end-to-end production process.

Utilising Industry 4.0 technology effectively will depend on the business problems individual businesses face. Showing that different approaches are valid for their individual business circumstances, Australian businesses are automating everything from gaps in their processes to whole factories.

People and skill sets for Industry 4.0

Specialists with the right combination of skills will be needed to get on the pathway to Industry 4.0. Manufacturers and expert management consultants interviewed in eleven countries see outsourcing as the way to manage this. Leveraging your existing skill base and supplementing it with external expertise to ensure you have the classical engineering expertise, process improvement expertise, computing, and data science skills to support digital transformation.

Skills which will increase in importance as knowledge work becomes more prevalent are those where intelligent machines might facilitate, but cannot perform the task:

Managing and developing peopleComplex problem solving and decision-makingProcess improvement expertiseManaging analyticsManaging and maintaining digital systems and networks

Business leaders, managers, and workers in the current workforce will all need to face, guide, or work through the implications of a digitalised workplace:

Retaining critical corporate memoryReframing organisation cultureAligning workforce skills and values with the new paradigmProviding skill development for employeesAccessibility and security of informationMonitoring technologies, surveillance, and worker independenceHuman interaction and engagement in a highly networked and automated environment

The skills and culture which you need to look for when recruiting during the transition to Industry 4.0 need some thought. Soft skills like solution-driven and action-oriented were among the criteria when Dulux sought staff for their greenfield Merrifield plant which has end-to-end digital control. Their promise to applicants included stability and career growth with a supportive team culture, quality, safety, innovation and inspiration.

In his book, The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization, Jacob Morgan looks at the conventions around how we work today and how the employee role will evolve. It is easy to observe that technology is a facilitator or driver of most of the new work behaviours and opportunities he presents.

Source: Chess Media Group

Chart a steady course to leverage Industry 4.0

The transition to Industry 4.0 will take time. When it comes to the profile of the job market, it is likely to be a decade before significant impacts will be felt.

Yes, job roles will disappear. However, as robotics and other cyber-physical technologies, sensing and actuation, greater connectivity through the supply chain, and increasing quantities of data are processed through powerful analytics new opportunities to improve and remodel how businesses provide value will be generated.

Making the transition will involve knowledge, skills, and workplace culture challenges for businesses. New and existing skill sets will be used to reap the rewards using technology as the means of solving real business problems and making businesses more efficient and productive.

Bibliography

Practical Pathways to Industry 4.0. The obstacles to digital transformation and how manufacturers can overcome them. Siemens Financial Services, February 2018 (https://www.siemens.com/customer-magazine/en/home/industry/creating-a-practical-pathway-to-industry-4-0.html )

ICT in manufacturing. High performance company industry consultations outcomes. Nico Adams, Peter King, Peter Kambouris. November 2015 CSIRO

Industry 4.0 Higher Apprenticeships Project is Underway https://www.aigroup.com.au/policy-and-research/industrynewsletter/industry-extras/industry-4.0-higher-apprenticeships-project/

Carbon fibre wheels roll off production line. Thursday, 8 October 2015 https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/portal/news/carbon-fibre-wheels-roll-production-line

Carbon Revolution inks Ferrari deal, mulls $100m IPO. Mar 7 2018 at 11:00 PM. Updated Mar 8 2018 at 7:22 AM. http://www.afr.com/news/carbon-revolution-inks-ferrari-deal-mulls-100m-ipo-20180306-h0x48r

Carbon Revolution http://aamc.org.au/portfolio-items/carbon-revolution/

Dulux https://duluxmerrifield.com.au/careers-at-dulux-merrifield/

You put a lot of time and effort into reducing waste and improving productivity at work. But, scrutinising your business processes is not the only place you will find improvement opportunities.

Personal productivity gains can make a difference too. Drop some habits that drain your personal productivity and lift your performance.

But remember, the goal isn't to spend more time working. It's spending the time you work more productively.

Cornell's Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory found that workers using a computer who were reminded to take a break were 13% more accurate in their keystrokes than those who weren’t reminded to take a break.

This study's result is in-line with other studies that have identified working intensely and then taking a break refreshes you cognitively. Making you more productive.

Most of us are guilty of personal work practices that get in the way of doing what is important and urgent. Doing things that seem important, but eat up time and get in the way of achieving your goals. Time-wasters that can also affect the team you manage and influence workplace culture.

Do any of these time-traps feel uncomfortably familiar to you?

1. Hitting the inbox first thing every morning

Email is full of distractions that can divert you from your to-do list. Only you and your email know how much time you spend together.

Get back in the driver’s seat and schedule email the same way you would other activities you need to spend time on.

2. Always answering the phone

Your phone isn’t a fire alarm. You’ve already decided that who you are with or what you are doing deserves your attention.

Before you answer the phone, stop and think. Is breaking your conversation or concentration the right thing to do? Voicemail can take a message, better still when you don’t want to be interrupted divert the phone to voicemail or turn it off.

3. Putting off a task until later

Just get to work on it. Your schedule will never be any clearer than it is today.

Your brainpower is not going to be significantly better at any other time. It is most likely that you are just getting in your own way.

4. Responding to everything immediately

This is the classic way to work on other people’s priorities and lose sight of your own.

First, know what is urgent and important to you. Then you can prioritise your attention more effectively, achieve great things and help others appropriately.

5. Aiming to get it 100% perfect

Slow progress, failure to complete projects, and waste are symptoms of perfectionism. Setting measurable goals is realistic.

Perfection isn’t a goal. A 10% increase in output is a goal. So is aiming for another 10% increase once you have achieved the first increase in output.

6. Meetings and conference calls

A collaborative study by Microsoft, America Online and Salary.com concluded that the average worker actually worked only three days per week or about 1.5 hours per day spending the rest of their time in unproductive meetings.

To hold an effective meeting have an agenda based on goals, with outcomes to be achieved during the meeting. Gather information prior to the meeting. Invite people to the meeting because they need to interact to work together on one of the meeting goals.

7. Multi-tasking

You can lose up to 40% of your productivity if you multi-task. Task switching causes fractional time wasting every time you change tasks, it increases error rates, and memory losses. You can only attend to one cognitive task at a time.

You can probably walk and talk at the same time. But, there is a high likelihood that while you walk and talk you will run into something or not remember what you have seen. It's best to do one thing at a time.

Making changes

You could be overwhelmed trying to tackle all of the drains on your personal productivity at once. Increase your chances of changing your habits by focusing on changing one at a time.

Look at workplace culture too. Is there something to change that would improve everyday working productivity for everybody?

REFERENCEShttp://news.cornell.edu/stories/1999/09/onscreen-break-reminder-boosts-productivity

Sebel Furniture has gone from voluntary administration, through business transformation, to become a growth organisation.

Sebel’s business transformation program is delivering results by focusing on people. Embracing Lean, Sebel are developing their leaders. Giving them tools like positive leadership and Visual Management so they can be catalysts for extraordinary change and growth.

Greg Mottram and the Sebel team generously offered a ‘warts and all’ insight into their successes and their struggles from their introduction all the way through the tour of the factory floor.

Feedback from members of the Consortium attending the site visit:

“Excellent opportunity to reflect on change at Sebel and relate to my company”

“Great day. Good to see how other factories are run, especially a process facility”

“Appreciated the honesty and openness of the Sebel management, learnt a lot”

Find out more about the benefits of joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

The 2017 site visit hosted by the team at Interface was inspiring. Interface is

Designing from the ground up. Interface have invested in industry-leading technology and best-practice processes, creating an environment where a BPI culture and philosophy is becoming well entrenched. They are producing their most complex and sophisticated products to date. While proudly holding the title of Australia’s first Zero-Waste-to-Landfill carpet manufacturing facility.

Consortium member walked away from the site tour inspired by:

The determination and foresight of a leadership drive to reduce waste which has persisted for more than two decades.The benefits of sitting an experienced team around the table to design and plan from a clean slate.The positive impact of building business process improvement into your everyday thinking.The pleasure and positive impact of coming to work in an orderly and well run site.No matter how perfect everything seems on the surface, process improvement is an ongoing journey. You always have to be looking ahead and listening to what your team is concerned about.

One objective of the site visit was for Consortium members to assist in identifying improvement tools to increase staff engagement and embed a ‘ground-up' solutions culture. This Thermo Scientific Tiered Metric Standup Meetings video clip was used to stimulate discussion about the importance of daily communications in a Continuous Improvement strategy.

Find out more about the benefits of joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

It’s no secret that companies need to constantly evolve to stay on top of the competition. Especially off-shore competition.Scott Safety, a developer and manufacturer of innovative respiratory protection equipment, other personal protective equipment and safety devices has been manufacturing in Australia for more than 75 years. It provides an excellent example of a how a Lean culture can transform an organisation into a global leader in its field.

The business has been ‘living the Lean life’ for several years. Using daily management, one-piece flow and visual management during the journey.

Greg Culley and the team at Scott Safety kindly provided the opportunity to tour the Guildford manufacturing facility. Greg talked about Scott Safety’s continuing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) journey. During the tour we saw that the application of TPM creates a shared responsibility for equipment, encourages greater involvement by plant floor workers, and has a positive effect on productivity.

Feedback from members of the Consortium attending the site visit:

“Very informational, can use a lot of today’s discussion in my branch”

“Highly valuable exposure for my team and helps generate great discussion after the event”

“Great takeaways & also provided benchmarks for us to follow on our 5S journey”

Find out more about the benefits of joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

The site tour provided a rare insight into creating a facility capable of housing nuclear material, and the processes involved in the manufacture and handling of Nuclear Medicine. Construction of the new nuclear medicine production facility is on target to be completed in late 2017.

The new nuclear medicine facility will triple ANSTO’s Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) production. Australia will be able to meet domestic demand and supply a significant proportion of the world demand for this nuclear medicine.

The site tour covered the new nuclear medicine facility and existing nuclear facilities. ANSTO is a strong proponent of Lean Methodology. In the new facility we saw how they have used 5S methodology as part of their continuous improvement (CI) drive eliminating waste, improving flow and empowering the workforce.

The passion and enthusiasm showed by the ANSTO team was remarked upon by participants in the site tour.

Our appreciation goes to the management and staff at ANSTO, particularly; Lindsay Pursehouse, Manager – Central Scheduling and Supply; Enzo Valente, Operational Readiness Coordinator at ANM; Aaron Flett - Operations Manager ANM; and James Charlesworth – Mo99 Manager. The passion and enthusiasm they and their teams display was much remarked on by our attendees.

Feedback from members of the Consortium attending the site visit:

“Fantastic! I was overwhelmed with the facility. The team are positive and really enjoy their jobs”

“Good to see another company’s approach – enjoy learning about other processes”

“Great tour, great site, great people”

Find out more about the benefits of joining Performance Drivers Consortium

Improvement, innovation and passion. These three words that sum up what drives the team at Alchin Long.

Alchin Long Group (ALG) is the parent company of five leading global hardware brands. More than 140 staff members work at the 12,000 m2 state-of-the-art Wetherill Park facility

National Operations Manager, Graham Lee and members of the team spoke enthusiastically about their improvement initiatives, before leading the tour.

ALG’s innovation and determination has many effects which site tour participants noted:

When management is genuinely invested in success, and has plans and a vision for the future, their enthusiasm filters down and is felt within the workforce.Early adoption of technology such as 3D printing, is motivating and enabling young engineers.There are two types of people in any workforce - Leaners who weigh you down and Lifters who are engaged and want to be there.It is possible to convince shopfloor teams to happily adopt a routine pause for exercise and a full assembly rotation roster.It’s important to distinguish between management and floor KPIs. Consider how individuals at a specific level can influence corporate KPIs and adapt the measures, the feedback and the recognition accordingly.

Feedback from members of the Consortium attending the site visit:

“Very well organised, informative and a pleasure to be invited.”

“Excellent workshop presentations first class with great information.”

Find out more about joining the Performance Drivers Consortium

LaserBond started as a family venture in the early 90s. The engineering firm identified and nurtured their pioneering approach to laser technology and was able to educate their customers of the substantial benefits of their system.

LaserBond’s customers operate in capital-intensive industries, including mineral and food processing, mining, agriculture and manufacturing, and they rely heavily on equipment running at peak performance over long periods of time. Operating from sites in Sydney and Adelaide, they specialise in the manufacture and reclamation of components and assemblies, often for critical applications that require optimised surface properties.

The company’s vision is to be a global leader in the research, design and implementation of advanced surface engineering technologies and innovations. They tangibly reduce unit operating costs by extending the wear life of production-vital equipment. These technologies and applications result in increased production yield, reduced downtime and maintenance costs. It’s all about improving productivity.

The Myth of Greater Capacity

Over the years the business expanded to match the growth in demand for its products. The notion that more capacity will of itself lead to greater efficiency is a myth.

THE OBJECTIVE

As part of a strategy to optimise the capacity and capability of their facilities and staff to deliver innovative services and products and to diversify and grow their business, LaserBond decided in June 2014 to embark on a Lean transformation. The move to a larger facility had not brought instant solutions to old problems. LaserBond found that margins did not keep pace with the increases in sales revenue and the company decided to implement productivity measures at its Smeaton Grange facility. The issues that required immediate attention were determined to be:

reduction of lead times, improving the layout and organisation of the physical work environment,reduction of ‘work in progress’ andimprovement in overall organisational culture.

LaserBond sought external support to address these issues. Brian, one of Performance Drivers’ Principal Consultants was employed to facilitate the transformation program. With decades of experience across multiple industries, this Brian was armed with tried and tested tools and methodologies, and a multitude of success stories.

THE APPROACH

Performance Drivers generally employs one of three options when tackling a Lean initiative, each with a slightly different focus. LaserBond opted for a pilot program and a plan to upskill the workforce. The approach involves expert facilitation of a proof of concept, followed by ongoing mentoring.

Building internal capability is critical to establish a solid foundation for change with a sharpened focus and cultural shift geared towards ongoing continuous improvement.

Apart from subject matter expertise, Brian brought, by virtue of a very long and successful career, a plethora of compelling true stories. He started off inviting storytelling to get to the root of daily frustrations and then encouraged the sharing of success stories as the pilot and subsequent initiatives rolled out.

The purpose of a pilot project is to allow for ‘quick wins’ and the opportunity to demonstrate real success. With a proof of concept story of their own to tell, the pilot team was able to spread the word. They shared the Guru’s stories, validating them with their own experiences. There is something very empowering about visible and recent proof of your own successes – it makes story time that much more enjoyable.

Whilst the CEO was present at the awareness briefings to show support and encouragement, LaserBond chose to actively avoid presenting a top down approach. The critical success factor for the organisation has been the direct involvement of all the folk on the shop floor team. This has ensured that workers themselves understand, believe in and own the transformation. They hold the copyright to their own stories, as it were.

Selecting a few pilot areas enabled staff to get their feet wet. They effected dramatic improvement in a small area in a very short time (literally days) and customised the Lean tools into a ‘LaserBond Way and Culture’. After the pilots were successfully deployed, the scope was expanded to the rest of the production, scheduling and warehouse areas.

A common challenge with projects of this nature is allocating time for all staff to undertake improvements, whilst still keeping up with business as usual. LaserBond’s Financial Controller arranged for account codes to be created for staff to allocate both time and purchase expenses to the Lean project.

The project resulted in a 7% improvement in the business's financials

The time gained by implementing Workplace Organisation was measured against the time spent on making the improvements, and articulating the net gains. After three months, during which various carefully selected Lean techniques (Workplace Organisation, Kaizen (improvement suggestions from reducing wastes) and Visual Workplace) were deployed, considerable improvements and benefits were realised in terms of:

lead time reductioninventory reductionestimated vs actual operation timesgreater employee and visitor safetypercentage time spent actually working on jobs.

Financial results have shown a sustainable 7% improvement that can be directly related to the efficiency improvements achieved as a result of the Lean manufacturing techniques and other shop floor efficiency improvements.

We expected pushback from a team of people set in their ways, but they embraced the change with a response of, “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

The second phase of the LaserBond project started looking at machine performance (TPM / Total Productive Maintenance) and scheduling. Log books were kept at each work centre, and ongoing improvements effected to machinery to restore to initial conditions, improve reliability and performance, and perform preventative maintenance.

Examination of the log book for one of the machines showed that the number of issues, stoppages and breakdowns reduced from an average of 20 per month, to one every two months.

During this period staff were trained in Lean tools such as Quick Changeover, Structured Problem Solving and Mistake Proofing. The next phase is a project in progress to reduce rework. The Lean thinking program is also being expanded into Sales, Finance, and Administration.

Continuous improvement is, by definition, never complete. The LaserBond team has had the foresight to ensure that their team sustains a culture of pride and confidence building.

The major culture change and imperative of the transformation was the empowerment of operators to own their processes, and come up with ongoing continuous improvement suggestions

LESSONS LEARNT

Actively avoiding a top down approach can be very empowering for workers at the coalface, in that it makes the successes entirely their own.

Choosing pilot areas wisely can provide authentic success stories within days.

An account code/ cost centre for project time and resources to be billed against provides data for articulating net gains in real financial terms.