Within a Management Operating System, the most visual component is generally the Lean Board style Daily Production Meeting. They are the charts that are strictly two colour: Green is Good, Red is an Opportunity for Improvement. Most people recognise that feeding into the Lean Boards is a swag of Planning: Monthly, Weekly, Daily. And flowing out is a heap of review activity, with problem solving feeding back into the new plans.
What is not as obvious is how the Lean Boards link into each other; cascading up to the higher level organisational KPI’s. This is because not every team has the same field of view; we need to tailor KPI’s to their specific areas and like a good orchestra, it should all come together at the big show.
A clean example I got to help pull together… at 7.30am, the General Manager met with all Department Heads and worked through the past 24 hours. In process order, to suit the mineral we were extracting. The Mining Manager owned charts within Mining & Minerals Processing; naturally Availability is always the key conversation at the Daily level. In this case, it was Critical Fleet Availability and he reported his number. It had been holding steady for a while and not an issue today.
Almost two hours earlier, the workshop serviceman was colouring in his Late ‘n Dirty Tracker chart. A Safety Cross style so if all is green it looks like an ambulance symbol and that has a comforting feel to it. A bit chuffed, he stood back and reflected on the progress they’d made. The Supervisor declared the meeting open and remarked that Loader Availability was still looking good. A whole swing of Green – we’ll jot that onto the Celebrating Success table. Great stuff…
That just leaves the meeting in-between. The supervisor’s ran the shop floor meetings, and reported up to the Superintendents. They are looking after separate maintenance functions and all manage a piece of the puzzle; Processing Maintenance, Mining Fixed Plant Maintenance, Mining Mobile Maintenance, Maintenance Projects and the Maintenance Engineering Team.
They all have targets to achieve and the metrics are cascading up…. similar to getting the Loaders in On Time and Clean supported Loader Availability. Which in turn supports Material Handling Equipment Availability. That hits the GM’s board as Critical Fleet Availability.
For those still reading… what did the L&D Tracker do? It all came down to highlighting human behaviour. See, ‘ol mate the Serviceman had six Loaders to perform Daily Services on each shift. Scheduled for one hour each, with about 45 minutes of physical checks and activity: tyres, grease nipples, hydraulic checks. Engine oil, Coolant, Belts are there; Belts are tight. Windscreen washer full. Wipers work. Onboard diagnostics are not indicating any issue. Minor repairs conducted in the delivery gap where possible.
The behaviour? Three operators were coming in at once to have crib… expecting three services to be completed in 30 minutes. It was impossible …. and the data driven discussions corrected the behaviour.
Key Takeaways:
1.KPI’s at the shop floor level need to connect with the boss’ board.
2.Data is a great influencer – what gets measured gets managed (C. Kettering)
3.GROWTH Improvements can assist you in your cascading KPI quest. Call Damo on 0409203489