Business, Know Thyself

I guess its pretty difficult if you aren't ISO/ QS/TS. If you are, you have documented your processes,they cover what you do, and if you are a real manufacturing person, you actually have standard work.

If not, the best way to improve your processes is to document them and by the way flow chart them and look for waste.

I love the Japanese Plants I've visited. THEY GET Standard Work.

"yet in many operations a documented description of what goes on simply does not exist."

Manufacturing? REally?

Yikes!

milo

Most places I have found, over the years, simply blunder along some of the blundering is not too bad but others you would wonder how people think it is so disjointed. I have found, typically, that with a little training and an open visible system, even on hard copy only, it is sufficient to double profit. This not many company bosses believe, the bigger the company the more conservative it tends to be. The ideal size would appear to be between 30 - 50 people but all operations have a natural minimum head count, to use an accounting maxim. A system is good to work to and any of the ISO/TS etc are a good start but need to be locked in to stay put and give an impitus for improvement as bosses change and people come and go. Unfortunately a lot of improvement is applied to processes, manufacturing etc, and not to the business as a whole this is one reason for failure. Another is with a system such as ISO the upper level management all to often see this as a good thing to monitor what is going on but miss the payback be a mile. They do not change their mangement stile to suit the system they have paid for and so end up with an 'appendage' system that will often conflict with how they think. Therefore, they treat the system as a seperate item to how they manage and run around at audits to give everyone a dishonest look at how they do things. More later.

A good article...

but...

In many companies..the 'policies and procedures' become so bulky they end up bearing no relationship to reality.

The other reply saying the best size for a company is 30 or so... has sure got that right.

Q. How many people work in your company?

A. About half of 'em !

Q. How many people work in your company?

A. About half of 'em !

WOW! You must have an extremely good incentive program to get that many of them working!

One other question. Is what they are doing adding value to the product or cost.

Working on a project we discovered that several steps had been added to give the product shine. The product did not need shine no one ever saw it after it was installed expect maybe the crushing machine operator when recycling.

Why are they doing what they are doing? When was that step added and why?

You know this is an important subject yet look at the comment hit?

You are talking about re engineering. There are some good works by experienced people on this process fiding the onyl that fits your needs will take some time and study.