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The Essential Pioneer's Survival Guide: Breaking Down Management Silos
March 28, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of SMT Magazine.The manufacturing shop floor is a funnel that brings together several manufacturing disciplines, each required to make the overall operation work effectively. When changes to processes or procedures are proposed, each involved group must give buy-in. Traditionally, each of these groups acted individually--each with an agenda supporting their particular discipline and not taking into account the requirements of the other groups--forming management silos, groups unable to consider or effectively communicate with other groups.
As manufacturing execution systems become more and more integrated and widespread, weaknesses among the management silos are exposed. Proposed changes to the operation can lead to two outcomes: The creation of opportunity for improvement with everyone working together or a complete breakdown of effectiveness as rivalries persist. What factors should be addressed to ensure that the benefits and opportunities of manufacturing execution systems (MES) are realized and do not become part of the overall problem? Silos in Action Every day the silos of management appear to work together on the shop floor, but things are not always harmonious. To understand the reasons why, consider a typical problem that can occur at any time on a dysfunctional shop floor.
Production Manager A machine stops because it has run out of a certain material unexpectedly. The key priority and motivation of the production manager is to keep manufacturing running, no matter what. The responsibility for the completion of products lies with production management. No time for investigation here: Just find the materials and get the machine running again. Every second the machine is stopped costs serious money. Productivity and on-time delivery are the upper-most issues in the mind of manufacturing managers and operators. Material is found and replenished. A report is made, in which the materials manager is criticized for not providing adequate material to production.
Materials Manager The priority for the materials manager is the accuracy and availability of materials inventory for production. The management of materials in the warehouse is a challenge, with materials being returned late with unknown quantities, other materials somehow being lost in the manufacturing process, and some materials just simply disappearing. Having so much unmanaged material inventory on the shop floor is a major issue which leads to many problems. It is amazing how much material production needs in excess of that which the BOM specifies. The nature of spoilage in SMT is the key challenge to materials management success. Machines tolerate spoilage as if it hasn’t happened. It can be small random quantities, but sometimes can suddenly become quite significant. Care is often taken with expensive parts, but the materials manager knows that if even the most insignificant component is missing, the entire product cannot be completed. Addressing the issue in this material shortage example, the materials manager states that the correct number of materials was supplied, calculated from the bill of materials, the number of products to be produced, and the agreed allowance for spoilage. Proof can be shown that materials were selected and included in the kit sent to the shop floor. What happened after this is not the fault or issue of the supply chain. In fact, an alternative part number had been selected instead of the originally specified one, due to a potential shortage of the main part number. The usage of the alternative part was approved by the engineering department.
Engineering Manager Many challenges arise day to day when attempting to ensure products are made with the correct versions of machine programs following engineering changes. This is the most important aspect for the department. The basic BOM could be quite simple: A list of components to be placed on PCBs. One challenge comes with engineering changes. Many of these are not planned well enough in advance for material order changes to be effective, so availability of materials may be affected. Additional materials may be required and some may become obsolete. Materials are very expensive, which drives the motivation to re-use them as much as possible. Obsolete parts from one product may become re-assigned to another product. This creates the need for materials flexibility. To ease the constraints for materials availability, engineering can approve material equivalents or alternatives. This helps address both last-minute revision changes, and also those cases in the market where there is a shortage of the intended materials and alternatives are sought. This is what happened in this example: The work order was pulled and the material in question was in short supply, so an alternate part number was supplied to make up the required number. The planning manager is criticised for not knowing what actual materials are available before pulling a work order forward. Surely he talks to the materials manager, right?
Planning Manager Ensuring that the shop floor is fully loaded and in line with customer expectation is a clear priority for the planning manager--this is where the money is made. Inefficient planning and utilisation of assets leads to excessive and needless costs. The challenge is the need for agility. As customer demand changes, the production plan should be adjusted to ensure changes are accommodated without loss of efficiency or opportunity, and that resources, including materials, are not exhausted. This is made difficult since the inventory of materials, especially those on the shop floor, is not accurate. Sometimes opportunities are lost when materials thought to not be available are actually on hand. In other cases, work orders are executed during a period when materials suddenly run out. The decision is a balance of risk without knowing the accurate level of inventory. In our example, the plan was changed: Engineering confirmed that the change of material needed was acceptable, so the order went forward. This particular work order also had quality problems which slowed progress, creating a problem for follow-on schedules. This came from the quality manager, who had a real issue with the production manager.
Quality Manager The number one priority is quality. Defects cannot be tolerated in the market, which would put brand image and market opportunity at risk. Good quality needs a stable and managed production process. If something changes it inherently threatens the operation. Quality data collection can show and highlight which changes cause problems. The quality manager has the power to stop the operation should there be a serious quality issue. For the work order in our example, there was an issue at inspection where the first-pass yield was much lower than expected. Several defects were detected and considerable rework was needed. The quality reports show that the main quality issue was around components that were placed from the material in question. This slowed the progress of the line and the SMT line kept running, but it was not seen to be serious enough to be an epidemic problem. In later analysis, the change of material from the original part number to the alternative occurred part way through the work order. In fact, the reels of original materials and the alternatives were mixed. Though engineering had signed off on the material change, the alternate part had a slightly different height as compared to the original.
The problem escalates, since many of the products made might have defects which passed inspection within tolerance, but which could have fragile connections due to misplacement. Now the blame game begins: Why didn’t engineering know about the height difference? Why didn’t the machines detect the change? Why were the material reels mixed? Why didn’t quality stop the line? These are all good questions, but the problem has already occurred and consequences must be faced. By not seeing the whole picture as it happens, the real fault in this scenario is mistakes in judgement.
With humans involved, however, faults have to be tolerated. In this example, the effect of the issue could have been minimized if the simplest initial symptom had been seen and understood. More material was being consumed by the machine than expected. Looking at the patterns of usage and spoilage should have immediately identified a serious issue, long before the resultant shortage for material for the work order was reported. An MES system with direct machine connections collects and shows this information, but the data must be used to be effective.
Figure 1: To operate with peak efficiency, management silos must be removed and all disciplines must work toward a common corporate goal.
Management and engineers can become stuck in old habits, using MES to automate what has always been done rather than looking for a better way. The reason is simply momentum. Production is a very complex machine and if something changes, it affects everyone. One aspect on which all silos agree is that change carries risk. Incremental, small changes, such as Kaizen, are eagerly accepted. Bigger changes are not so easily accepted. Breaking Down Silos The state-of-the-art for manufacturing systems is now integration. The best systems available will not only combine information from many sources, but will also use that information in real-time to manage processes, deliver materials just in time, assure quality, adjust the plan, and maintain the highest performance including required agility. The visibility from MES information can expose long-standing challenges in the operation. Clearly, the objectives need to change and the barriers between silos need to dissolve. The final business goals need to come into clear focus. With unambiguous, immediate, and accurate data in front of everyone an opportunity exists; the silos disappear and people are really working together.
It sounds too good to be true. How can such a change happen? How did the silos get to be there in the first place? Asking people to work in an environment where there is both uncertainty and risk of failure creates virtual walls and barriers which end up creating the silos. The motivation to start building barriers was justified by the need to be in control of their assigned area. The negative element that often then creeps in, however, is that the barriers between the silos are used to shield blame and responsibility. The adoption of integrated technologies exposes the gaps between the silos.
One thousand reasons can be raised by silo managers to show why MES technology is not suitable for the operation and its special operational needs. Many of these special operational needs, however, are those which have been created simply to protect the silo. The challenge is to know which needs are genuine and which are simply consequences of old working practices. These can be small things such as a part of the engineering flow, with one process now replacing several previous ones, or much more significant things, such as a complete paradigm change for materials flow from the warehouse to the machines.
The compelling need for MES today is that incremental Kaizen-style improvements can only go so far. For many companies, the business needs demand step-change improvements to keep up with competition and attract additional business. Quality must work with manufacturing to assure all processes are quality driven, all the time. Planning must improve to increase asset utilisation and agility, with continuous interaction with materials and engineering. The commonality for all of these is accessibility of accurate and live information which integrated MES systems, especially those connected directly to automated processes, provide. The pace with which this is moving is escalating, especially in operations that are newer to the industry and don’t have the legacy of old working practices and egos behind them.
People will always be the most vital part of any production operation. Whether managers or operators, each person contributes to the success or failure of the company. Motivation is a key factor and is strongly influenced by the culture of the operation. An open culture, where everyone works together solving problems, is far more agreeable than an environment where it is best to keep your head down in case the responsibility for some issue is thrown around. MES can be the answer to provide the tools to achieve an open culture. The tool, or solution as some would like to think of it, is only as good as the way it is adopted and used by the entire shop floor management team. Now is your chance to break down management silos and achieve real improvement. Michael Ford is senior marketing development manager with the Valor division of Mentor Graphics Corporation. Utilizing his 30-year experience of industry knowledge, Ford examines key business objectives with his technology expertise to find solutions and opportunities where the industry had previously faced challenges. He began his career as a computer software and hardware engineer and created and managed manufacturing solutions for Sony where, he became one of the first successful adopters of computer technology for manufacturing, materials, and testing for the PCB-A shop floor. Ford is well versed in the principles of Lean thinking and sustainability and offers his expertise and knowledge in this bi-monthly column.