How to Refine Process Monitoring
Refine process monitoring by using lean tools and identifying key process indicators (K.P.I.'s) that help measure and control inputs. Automated processes are much easier to manage; manual processes need additional tools and techniques to help eliminate variation. Don't think about trying to improve a process until it is standardized.
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Things You'll Need
- Process flow map
- Standard work
- Roles and responsibilities
- Data collection method
Instructions
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Standardize the process first before trying to refine it. Map out the process flow from beginning to end. Document communications and product flow with a standard value stream map. Identify problem areas and get participants to agree on the "right" way of doing things. Encourage employees to discuss why they do things a certain way and obtain buy in for everyone to work the same way. Once you receive buy in, train everyone and make sure expectations on a new "standardized" process are understood. Operators shouldn't be permitted to do things differently.
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Focus on the following: how do employees know what to work on next, how do they make decisions, and how good or bad is the operator's response rate. Work towards empowering each person to have the right skills and right approvals within the value stream. Document steps that require waiting, re-work, or produce a better or worse than normal level of defects. These norms or averages are what you're looking for. Tighten the normal production process.by establishing upper and lower control limits. Things that happen below your lower control limits or above your upper control limits need to be investigated and understood.
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When an anomaly occurs, investigate root cause. Develop ways to mistake proof or prevent human errors. Highlight decision paths with standard work and provide mentoring and ample training to help employees to continually make the right decisions. Refine the process by eliminating or mistake proofing steps in the process that cause variation.
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After the process is standardized and the routine causes for producing variation are eradicated, you should have a standardized process that is repeatable. Now take the "standards" and try to tighten them. You can do this by eliminating equipment down time, employee down time and level loading the work through managing the key process inputs. Use visual indicators and minimize waiting. The idea is to level load the process, then refine the bottleneck areas so things flow continuously and evenly across the organization.
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After processes are fixed, documented and everyone is trained, this is your new "current" state. Continue to refine it again, using the steps above.
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Tips & Warnings
When you think about how you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you can see how adding the steps of getting out the peanut butter and jelly and obtaining the knife to spread on the bread could be different in each person's kitchen. The level of detail that you use in your standard work should be appropriate for the task at hand.
When analyzing a process you need a system of measurement that is easy to use and built in if possible. Lagging measurements such as being on time for delivery, and producing 98 percent quality are great but they tell you the results of what you did, after the fact.
Measure inputs instead. For example, if a valuable employee was missing or a critical decision was missed because someone was on vacation, find a way to measure these inputs in the future to prevent them from affecting the outputs at the back end of the process. This might mean you need to train others to do the task, provide a decision tree document, or create a cross-training plan that covers vacations of critical employees.
References
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