Is your plant proud to be ‘flexible’? And how would the team leaders describe this flexibility? In some cases, on the production floor this really means chaos. In this post I share my own experiences and plead for setting up a plant for success by providing a stable production schedule.
My own journey
A few years ago, I thought I was doing a great job managing a planning team when the production manager invited me for a tour around the plant. So I joined him and we paid a visit to the team leaders in the different areas. They were always equally friendly and patient.
So one of them explained to me that the previous day, they had spent hours preparing a batch that suddenly popped up on the schedule and there was ‘PRIO’ indicated to that batch on the planning of that day. The equipment and ingredients were now all ready and the batch was ready to start. However today, on the updated plan, the batch apparently was not needed anymore and a different batch was urgent. He explained to me, still friendly, that all the work that had been done the previous day had to be undone and a new batch had to be prepared. But before being able to do this, given the limited space on the shopfloor, all the ingredients that were brought in the previous day had to be brought back to the warehouse so this time, more time will be required to prepare. He expressed his hope that tomorrow, when they were hoping to get ready to launch it, the batch would still be on the plan. When I understood what had happened, I felt ashamed.
I realized that probably one of the planners changed the schedule without fully understanding the consequences of that change. With a mouse click or two, a batch can be deleted in the planning systems. However, in the physical work it creates a lot of work, a lot of alignment needs and it can come across as highly disrespectful to the work the people on the shopfloor do on a day to day basis where they try to execute the schedule we provide to them. I had never asked the planning team to keep the schedule stable, as we were proud of being a ‘flexible’ plant, reacting to the changed needs whenever we could. We were clicking the mouse whenever it was needed and we were proud of it. We did not recognize what kind of chaos we were causing.
The lesson
This event taught me a lesson: when operators are friendly, it is maybe not because you deserve it. It is maybe because they are simply friendly people, trying to cope with the chaos you have created, sometimes even getting used to this level of chaos and considering it as ‘part of the job’.
The transition
The good thing of this lesson was that we adapted the approach, creating a frozen schedule. It was a big change for the planners, who were initially convinced we would loose the ‘flexibility’ and become less competitive.
However, as soon as we were able to stick to a frozen and stable schedule, we saw that the success rate of making a batch according to the schedule drastically increased. We grew from a ‘chaotic’ plant (we called it flexible) to a reliable plant. The operators were able to follow the schedule, we were able to gather their input and expertise upfront and the different teams were setup for success. After a few months, the planners considered the creation and alignment of the frozen schedule as an essential part of the process, not willing to make abrupt changes to it, as they got the buy-in from the team leaders and they could rely on the execution of it.
The result
The results were amazing on different levels:
- Our reliability increased by 30%
- Our fixed costs per unit decreased by 15%
- Planners got to a ‘normal’ working rhythm… achieving more but avoiding the firefighting
- The relationship between the different stakeholders drastically improved. More thinking went into the frozen schedule, production team leads were giving their input. Planners learned from the team leaders, team leaders would agree on the schedule upfront and then would do what they could to make it happen.
The conclusion
The conclusion: don’t underestimate the benefit you can get from simply making a frozen schedule and sticking to it. The needed flexibility can be built on top of this. If you think you don’t need a frozen schedule as you have a ‘highly flexible’ plant, please read this article again or give me a call, or maybe…visit the team leaders in the plant and listen to them.
Good planning, great performance!