Review supplier, production site to see what?

Whether suppliers or peer review, visiting customers, target assessment, or internal current forms of field management, involve a lot of field observation. And field observation is often because of the limit of time, need to relevant personnel practice drawn, to live in a very short period of time for quick assessment and judgment. This paper tries to from the perspective of outsiders, about the topic to the production site to see what do the preliminary discussion.

1. The importance of field observation

Observation is the basis of continuous improvement. Toyota taiichi ohno to observation the perfection, even days off in the factory, he will also take management personnel to the scene, let a person standing quietly watch half an hour in the shop, and then needs to be improved are pointed out. Only then can it be the truly improve the endless, PDCA cycle.

The enterprise personnel tend to be a lot of problems, or turn a blind eye, or that harmless, or that cannot be changed. There are also many managers often turn a blind eye to visual information, only have a special liking to digital. The result might be exhaustive, ignore some of the key clues, can't really understand the true status of the enterprise.

As customers, we should go to supplier site, understand the cost structure, production efficiency, quality control. As a supplier, we should be to the customer's site, understand the production process, in order to better service for the customer. As peers, if have the opportunity to visit the other factory, also is very good, comparison and reference to the opportunity to learn.

Business is a big system, all the links, influence each other. For production-oriented enterprises, through the field of any details, known to small to see. Any big problems, can be found from the root. Even a tour in the limited time, as long as focusing, also can fully grasping the key information of factory operation. The following combines two aspects of macro system and management details to talk about how to carry out field observation.

2. The scene atmosphere

In the scene can visually see the first real staff mental outlook, high employee morale and sloppy, indifference of employees will form bright contrast. To talk a few words and with the workers from the workers of the facial expressions and body language can also get important first impression, because they directly reflects the mood of workers and to the satisfaction of the factory. , I visited a factory in the cheerful music played by most of the workshop, as in the past, the workers work enthusiasm is very high, in such a pleasant working environment, the efficiency is relatively higher, the quality of the product also can make people more confident.

Walking in the workshop to observe whether there is a busy spare uneven phenomenon, such as the machine in automatic machining, workers for a long time in the next to nothing, or some workers in the long wait for the material production. There is the phenomenon that the factory lack of lean management, low utilization rate of personnel, idle employees will also affect the working atmosphere of others, the overall working efficiency is low, the cost will be higher.

Should pay attention to whether or not shop light is enough, the air circulation is smooth, the scene have peculiar smell, the noise is too big, workshop is clean and tidy, because these will directly affect the workers' mood, will affect the production efficiency and product quality. It is hard to imagine a scene atmosphere of lazy, depression and apathy, employees or angry or idle factories can do products, to create benefits.

3. The space utilization and layout

Many factories in China have grandiose projects, production workshop, the better, the greater the results often utilization rate is low, equipment and process layout is scattered, in addition to the waste of space, material and with a large number of unnecessary handling in the factory. While developed countries most factories looks not so spectacular, even a bit cramped, but high space utilization, conversion efficiency is high.

The means of transport not only occupy the space, the operating cost is high, will also encourage unnecessary material movement. I see a lot in a customer factory electric forklifts, manual forklift in the busy shuttle, but there are a lot of waste handling. For example the same parts move from area A to area B after processing and then moved back to A zone do word processing, and then moved to the area C, finally have to move back to B area, handling waste can achieve perfection.

In principle, the use of production materials should be stored along the production line, instead of on a few inventory to distinguish separate storage, tools and equipment should be close to the machine. Factory layout should be to ensure that the products flow smoothly and avoid any partition. If seen in the material handling distance in a factory, transportation route repeat, or handling more, explain the layout is unreasonable, space utilization is not ideal, also suggests that the production line do not try to rally.

4. The standardized

Standard is the best state and unified the execution of the reference. Cannot perform without a standard, there is no starting point for improvement. Should some standard lot of manufacturing, including operations and quality standards, 5 s and safety standards, operation and maintenance standards, processes and rework, safety stock, and so on.

A lot of factory site have SOP (standard operation process), we can observe whether there is leakage, these standards can be easy to implement, if there is a breakpoint in the middle. Check whether to write, say and do is consistent, quality control points is a sign of a bold or color to highlight.

By observing the same process of different specific operation process, employees can be found if there is a difference, including action sequence, the level of operation, whether there are omissions, etc. There are difference shows that lack of standardized operation training, product change the possibility of increased greatly. When I at a supplier factory visit, I found the order of the four different workers lock screw, and no standard torque reference, all by feel, some workers will lock twice, some workers only to lock it again, it is no wonder that can produce screw off, or the side lock is too tight lead to become warped up the other side of the quality complaints.

5. Quality control

Observation should be emphatically pay attention to the workshop for the treatment of the poor. Good factory problems exposed, rather than the bad product and scrap. Focus on waste with lamplight, for example, or marked by red label should be marked, so that we can immediately know if waste increases, or the production process is a long period production non-conforming.

I saw a lot of bad in a corner of the factory, from the above dust visible for quite a long time, but there is no sign to explain the reason of the poor and the problem. Ask the workers, said all those things for months, no one knows what is problem, and no one processing. Ask appear bad product how to deal with, answer there is rework, and no one to explore the cause of the poor. Who dare factory cooperation and quality management is such a mess?

In the traceability of products, semi-finished products can be easily seen at the scene. In good factory, each unit has a card or a document with circulation, indicate the source, who handles the processing personnel, equipment, such as the use of information, in any process found that the problem can be traced back to easily, also facilitate to improve.

The scene by workers for the degree of protection components, to determine the precision of quality control. I have seen in a motor factory rotor is put in the cement ground at random, without any protection measures, the quality of the finished motor. Stator end up on a wooden bench on the other hand, workers in the upper plastic, the lower part of enamelled copper wire easily because of friction damage to the insulating paint, also caused the quality hidden trouble.

By observing the bad product quantity and proportion, can also be a preliminary judgment whether qualified a factory quality control process. Around noon I during a visit to a supplier, found accumulation for the end of the finished product line more than 20 pieces of nonconforming product. By asking workers, the production of production line a day on average in 1000, according to the estimate of non-conforming about 50 thing every day, finished product defective rate is as high as 5%, this shows that in front of each working procedure have a lot of quality problem has not been found, bad product has been moving in the end, the quality control is very weak, the cost of producing bad must be high.

6. Visual change

Visual management is the basis of many advanced management means, is a production enterprise management level of visual communication. In a well-run factory, visual tools can be seen everywhere. Including organization and standardization in the workplace, outcome indicators visual, standard operation visual, controlling indicators visual, automatic mistake proofing and error correction visual and warning mechanism and so on. Visit, looking for all kinds of visual tools should be paid attention to.

Visual management, kanban, kanban can be divided into static and dynamic management. Static kanban is mainly convey organization long-term management idea, the dynamic of kanban is managers to grasp the management information at any time, more can reflect a management level and ability of the factory.

I have seen many factories hanging a lot of propaganda in the workshop, the boss also very proud to show off is a good enterprise culture, visual changes. But these factories seldom use dynamic kanban, or dynamic basic motionless, kanban data information not updated for several months. This suggests that the kanban just like do it, there is no actual effect.

5 s is the embodiment of the site organization and standardization, are visible to the underlying application. Due to various reasons, however, in reality most of the Chinese enterprises in the aspect of 5 s management into the erroneous zone. Eye at a large motor manufacturers, the production workshop in the past almost spotless, all the ground painted a beautiful painting, all kinds of visual line, logo etc are done very like appearance, but only the lack of safety warning signs. Too smooth road surface friction force is insufficient, people walk on it accidentally slip, trolleys, forklift may skid. Such surface kung fu do very full, but there are still a lot of potential safety problems.

7. Tool equipment status

In a good factory and equipment clean and well maintained, equipment information be clear at a glance and real-time updates. In a foundry machining workshop, although all sorts of lathe are not very advanced, and even have a long history, but is running in good condition. I see the side of the each machine are strikingly stick a card, which records the device type, date of purchase, price, supplier, maintenance records, maintenance records, etc. In addition, the daily tally sheet also record is complete, some clear record tally sheet operators found hidden trouble, as well as the signature of the equipment department and treatment scheme. This suggests that the equipment management and maintenance to form the benign system.

In another factory, I saw a large vacuum varnished machine is in a state of waiting for repair, is said to be the sealing rubber ring aging need to change, but the accessories would place a month later. On the device without any maintenance records, although there is a daily tally sheet, but for such parts until serious aging can't use that illustrate the tally does not reach the designated position or perfunctory. The faults of the device could have produced very early warning and make corresponding preparation, not one month down seriously affect the production delivery.

Can also understand to staff at the scene, the operator and product developers are involved in the purchase of equipment and decision making. Front-line workers and personnel involved in the manufacture of product development and the most clearly the advantages and disadvantages of the new equipment, and understand the needs of production line. In a lot of factory equipment procurement is determined by the unit or senior, rarely solicit opinions from the frontline staff, resulting in a large number of subsequent problems. For example, I visited a supplier of machined parts, see at the scene of several sets of advanced equipment idle. Asked the scene management, the reason is the operation of this equipment need large quantities of single products to buy the same model, and the factory have never been such a bulk order. Such problems could have through previous departments extensive intervention to avoid.

In addition, if have a chance to look at the equipment switching process, or know about the production time and after HuanXing HuanXing batch. See if the factory can differentiate external operation and internal operation, whether can achieve rapid HuanXing, switch after the production batch is reasonable. These are directly affect the plant production efficiency, inventory and the cost of production.

8. Field observation points for attention

Field observation is found that the problem of the most direct means, most of these problems will be displayed at the scene, can quickly do the preliminary evaluation to the factory, which traced back, can also reduce the blindness of a lot of work. Discussed in this paper is only a small part of the observation of the content, field observation methods and different starting point in a number of ways, but the basic principles and the matters need to be aware of is the same.

First of all, can't take colored glasses to see the scene, with a conclusion to the scene to find evidence, so tend to be biased.

Second, the scene can't see the surface light, need to say, write, do check whether consistent, why need to ask a few more.

Third, we should at the same time with the macroscopic and microscopic view, by way of focusing on details, adopt the way of put to see the whole.

Fourth, try not to take notes, this will affect the continuity of observation and thinking, also can let the field staff feel nervous.