Simple Solutions That Work! Issue 12

consistency that happens when training is overlooked. DON’T SKIP STEPS Shortcuts are always a temptation, and we are all human. In times of high employee turnover, it can be especially enticing as new people don’t know the correct way of doing things and can immediately start developing bad habits in the name of short-term gains. Maintenance is the area that comes to mind here. In many situations, it’s much easier to forego the preventative maintenance schedule, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? This always leads to trouble. In our business we see it when furnace maintenance and cleaning is postponed and the resulting issues start a cascading downstream flow of bad outcomes that impact production in the form of lower output and higher costs as other system elements are strained and fail prematurely. In the end this is can be a triple whammy as costs increase, production decreases and customers are not satisfied. This downward spiral can be avoided by making the time to perform necessary maintenance and cleaning, and in all likelihood, adding some time to the schedule through overtime or being creative (which costs money) will be a much lower cost than not doing it. USE TECHNOLOGY Our industry is moved forward by innovation. In many cases, we now have access to technology that can directly result in improved process consistency. In spite of our best efforts to properly document, train and incent people to do the best they can, it can fall short of addressing all the relevant issues. In times of high turnover, this effect can domino as pointed out in the previous paragraph. This is the time to look to see where technology 59 BACK TO BASICS can be your friend. A good example here is setting operating parameters for your processes. In today’s foundry environment there are many examples of how we can gather process data and use that data in a way that eliminates some of the potential for operator error, especially when we may have many new operators who lack the desired level of experience. At MMEI, we have developed new SMART technology whereby our pumps can gather data related to metal temperature and metal levels in the furnace and use that data to make changes to the operating parameters of the process so that we optimize pump and system performance. This can be a very valuable feature as it can eliminate certain potential for operator input error when the operator may be new or lacks experience. Essentially, the pump knows when to speed up or slow down to best provide the necessary performance to meet the desired objectives. There are lots of examples like this that all the innovative companies in our industry bring to market every day. It is incumbent upon us to put them to use. MEASURE, FIX, REWARD We have all heard it said, “you can’t fix what you can’t measure.” To a large extent this is true, and measuring outcomes will indicate when your process consistency has slipped. It may not always tell you why, and it would be simplistic to suggest that the fixes are easy and all related to how we measure. They are not, and we know fixes require root cause analysis and can be complex. In times of high employee turnover, it may be that we can focus in more on areas that relate to some of the realities that this situation brings as we have been discussing. New people often do not have the training or experience to enable them to achieve the consistency we desire. In these cases, we need to blend some of the things we have been talking about so that we can try to match up new people with good supervision and focus on the more basic aspects of our process controls, with good work instructions, in hopes of establishing a baseline. From there it is possible to measure and reward based on a “baseline or better” concept that can relate to rate, quality, delivery or other process parameters unique to your operation. If you can break this down into simple steps that establish baseline performance, they become best practices, and can then be documented. If there is then a reward concept in place (again not always money), you can engage people in wanting to see improvement so that they benefit along with the company. These concepts don’t need to be permanent additions to your cost structure if done thoughtfully and with some creativity. BACK TO BASICS At the risk of hinting at my football allegiance, Vince Lombardi started every season by reminding his players, “Gentleman, this is a football.” That’s a pretty basic baseline upon which to then build towards a foundation of best practices that the team can execute. In his case, the challenge might have been injuries week to week, in our case it is high turnover. Focusing in on those things that allow us to maintain our core process consistency, establishing baseline performance and rewarding positive outcomes can go a long way towards building a great team. Contact: JEFF KELLER jeff.keller@mmei-inc.com