Down Time. The Ultimate Data Trap.
Adrian Pask
Manufacturing Digital Transformation Strategist | Consumer Goods Digital Manufacturing Leader
If your team is spending more time focusing on capturing data than taking action, there's a good chance that they're stuck in a 'data trap'. Down time can be the ultimate data trap because people often feel that their existing data never quite explains enough. The temptation is to say "if we just capture more data, then we can take better action".
If you want to reduce down time, capture just the information you need to have the right conversation with the right person. Have that conversation. And then take action.
Without lots and lots of data it is very tempting to defer action. But capturing more data places a burden on operators, requires more analysis, and can slow our ability to act. And now we're in the data trap.
The way out of the data trap? Focus on the smallest set of data that will be truly helpful and then work with your operators and engineers to take action. Here are three steps that can help you achieve this:
Focus on the Constraint: By measuring down time at the constraint/bottleneck (and not on every machine), you can focus on fixing the one step that will improve your output right away.
Simplify Data Capture: We recommend setting a down time threshold that results in 10 to 20 down events per shift. We also recommend providing your operators with no more than 25 reason codes. Less data capture. Less analysis. More action.
Gemba (Go to the Floor): No amount of data capture can replace the knowledge of your people. Once you have your top down reason, ask three questions: "What happened?", "How can we fix this right now?", and "How can we fix this long term?". Then take action.
Machine Whisperer & OEE Expert 🚀 Reducing Downtime | Accelerating Troubleshooting | 40+ Years of Shopfloor Experience Delivered in Trainings & Workshops for Your Teams
7yGreat Article The machine is the source of revenue. No department is treated as neglected as the production department. Documents are often still handwritten. No accounting or human resources department would work like this. But in many companies the source of revenue.
Director de Operaciones
7yGreat article. Thanks for sharing. I’d like to add we need to focus not only in the bottleneck machine(s) but the one(s) with higher downtime values. Pareto chart comes to be one of the best tool for this purpose. Regarding to Gemba, I would like to point out how important is the CI team involvement. They should be walking the Gemba at the shop-floor to understand the process, gather information and take – attainable - actions. Identifying unattainable actions could lead the CI project to fail and consequently team people to frustrate.
Directeur d'Usines
7yGreat article Adrian, simple process to drive productivity by the first level of management on the floor
Great article, thanks for sharing.
Production Manager
7yGreat article and very true of modern day manufacturing!