The shop floor is only one part of the overall lean strategy. Departments such as finance, accounting, customer service, purchasing, engineering, shipping, receiving, and others also contribute to achieving a good balance between cost, quality, and delivery. This approach to the lean enterprise, although a bit unconventional, makes good sense. With a strategic purpose in place and metrics established for the production floor, an organization gains a good sense of why it is in business. Although the shop floor is the key, each department should eventually develop its own internal metrics for improvement.
No single department makes, or breaks, a business. Each department is in place because it contributes to the overall success of the company. Each should be striving for continuous improvement and making its individual processes efficient and free of waste. Improvement initiatives in other departments—such as purchasing, engineering, sales and marketing, production control, and maintenance—should be centered on how they will affect the production floor. Manufacturing companies have a variety of functions that support the manufacturing floor. (Even though some smaller companies may not have all of these specific departments, each service or function is being performed.) Improving the key shop floor metrics should be the ultimate goal of each function, service, or department.
Purchasing
Remember that the goal is to create a balance of cost, quality, and delivery by the improvement of key shop floor metrics. The general function of a purchasing department is to buy parts and material for the production floor and to develop professional relationships with suppliers. Purchasing plays a critical role in a lean organization. No matter how refined, waste free, and streamlined the manufacturing processes are, if quality parts are not available when needed, the line stops. That is not good for delivery or quality.
Establishing annual goals for productivity is difficult when the parts you use are of substandard quality, resulting in production downtime due to confusion, excessive inspection, delay, and rework. These problems hurt productivity. Can your suppliers keep up with the higher volumes you now need because of your ability to reduce waste and inefficiency? Are they able to supply you with parts and material in the quantities and container sizes that will contribute to inventory reduction? It takes time to develop the type of relationships with suppliers that will allow you to work toward mutual goals. But the results will be worth the effort.
Engineering plays a major role in shop floor metrics. It is the responsibility of manufacturing and industrial engineers to collect the necessary data for the metrics. Capturing time and motion studies and analyzing waste are their responsibilities. Engineers are responsible for the technical and analytical projects of lean manufacturing and can assist in planning new line layouts, analyzing equipment capabilities, providing input on process quality, and monitoring conformance with new line balancing. Chapter 3 outlines the importance of having a kaizen champion, someone who is 100 percent dedicated to lean and kaizen principles. This individual should come from the engineering department.
Design and product engineers who are submitting engineering change requests (ECRs) should be trained in lean manufacturing and must be part of the lean effort. When parts changes and product updates occur, it affects workstation layout, 5S, line layout, parts presentation, and tools requirements. There must be a methodical approach to ECRs, as well as knowledge of how changes to documentation and other areas can affect the lean process. You need to address work content and cycle times before adding or removing parts from a product line being assembled in a lean environment. Design and manufacturing engineers should be in constant communication. A smart and thorough approach to engineering changes will prevent inventory, floor space, quality, and productivity from being negatively affected.
Sales and Marketing
Does your sales team know your current capacity? Have salespeople been trained in lean manufacturing so that they can make feasible promises to customers? I am often asked why the sales department should be involved in this journey. Lean processes are controlled through procedures, protocols, and rules. Although managers and supervisors sometimes need to make decisions that require deviation from procedures, that is an exception to the rule. Assembly lines and other manufacturing processes are designed based upon data and specified volume requirements. This volume requirement is used to establish the correct number of workstations, people, tools, parts, support mechanisms, and machines. If promises made by a sales team are forcing the production floor to work beyond its controlled limits, it is difficult to balance cost, quality, and delivery.
However, lean manufacturing is about flexibility and your ability to react positively and effectively to changes in customers' needs. What you need to avoid is having an untrained, uninformed sales force that is not aware of the operational constraints of the manufacturing department. Bring your salespeople into the lean process early on; share the lean philosophies and the realities of the operation. Their awareness will help them avoid creating unpleasant scenarios for all company employees as well as for the customer.
Production Control
The production control department represents a major bridge between office functions and the production floor. Often, production cannot move until the official order is received from production control. The customer doesn't care how long it takes for the order to get processed through your organization; the customer cares only about receiving your product by the promised delivery date. The longer an order sits in administrative processes, the longer the customer has to wait for the
product.
For small manufacturers, such as a traditional job shop environment where the day-to-day operations are dictated by the number of jobs in the building, the production control department must be efficient. Does the work order sit in a slow-moving stack? How many departments does it have to go through? Who checks it? What are the wait times between checks? In many cases, the production control department is the company's lifeblood. This department can have a significant impact—positive or negative—on productivity and delivery.
Maintenance
No matter how lean a process is, as long as any equipment or machines are unreliable, break down often, or do not operate correctly, delivery and productivity will be compromised. Preventive maintenance is critical to ensure that all mechanical tools on the floor are performing optimally. It is equally important to purchase good-value (not necessarily highest-cost) equipment. Good value means good service as well. Costs must be managed at every level of the organization, including the acquisition of equipment.