The Value of Steps
How many steps did you take today? What’s your goal? Ten thousand steps a day? More? In some cases, we have determined that more (steps) is better. This is especially the case if you are tracking your steps to determine how well you are faring against your daily goal. Steps equate to yards, miles, and time. Your body transforms this into burning off calories, which is the intent of monitoring your number of steps. More is better. More steps equal more calories burned off.
Now, the number of steps you take in a manufacturing environment means something completely the opposite. You may think to yourself you can kill two birds by going to work and getting your steps in at the same time. I have seen people track that and roll my eyes every time I think about it. Why? The more steps you take during your workday, especially if you are a production line associate, the less time is being used to do the actual work. More steps are bad.
You knew that already, so why is this such a revelation?
Time is money. If you can spend less time performing a work task or a series of work tasks, you are saving money. This is the meaning behind mass production and assembly line operations where hundreds of people are performing different work tasks, simultaneously, within a specific time span to complete the assembly of a product. Thank you, Henry Ford, for that great idea. EVERY Production Manager desires this, or better said demands this.
Slip Through the Cracks
I suppose you believe all your tasks are well defined and time out, so you have already minimized to the bare bone the time to complete a given job. How many tasks were never timed? How many unknowns are there in your operations? Let just call them job tasks that change hands and eventually find their way to completion, but no one is too concerned how long it takes. Oh, but it does become important when the follow up to this process puts the processing of other jobs behind. “How did that happen?” someone asks. The unknown process now becomes a 911 emergency run. Everything that is normal or standard to the general sequence of events is suddenly placed on hold until the unknown patient is strapped down and pushed through the channels to get the work completed and out the door. No one realized that the process was delayed for days, internally, because no one was monitoring it. You could say, the process just slipped through the cracks.
Process Flow and Process Mapping (Before and After)
Now let’s return to taking steps. This is true story of a process that was at best, weakly monitored by the Production Manager. His concerns were centered on daily production and not so much scheduling and coordination of indirect operations that occurred outside of his shopfloor.
The process was mapped out (actual steps of motion calculated) to determine the constraint in what should have been a simple outbound process. A process flow diagram was made to highlight tasks and handoffs. The BEFORE indicated repeat actions and a loop actually designed in to identify missing components, which added hours if not days to the overall timing to correct. (See graphics BEFORE below)
The process was studied to streamline the outbound process. Every task external to the outbound process was directed as a FIFO process and managed via visual controls, thereby scheduling was immediate, eliminating the searching and tracking down of personnel to authorize quench die shipment.
Kaizen Summary
The results of eliminating steps in the process saved days in the outbound processing of the quench die. Physical process steps within the facility were reduced by 280 feet or 26%, with a “carrot” to eliminate an additional 250 feet through relocating the Shipping & Receiving to the opposite side of the plant. Overall travel of the quench die would then be 540 total feet or a 50% reduction in travel or steps.
The steps here may seem to be insignificant. The overall time savings is what really stands out. But the uncovering of this “hidden treasure” of time would never have been found without the actual walking out of the steps. The revised outbound process now took a matter of 10 minutes. This was basically retrieving the quench die out of storage, prepping the shipper and loading the truck. The before process was overwhelmed with locating the die within the facility, inspecting, washing, re-inspection, obtaining sign offs, prepping the shipper and loading the truck. In most cases, this was always a 911 call and the process took 2-3 days to fully complete.
Elimination of steps and revising process steps via process flow mapping worked together to develop a process that had much greater integrity with much less effort. An added benefit was that the revised process did not run interference with the current operations of the day, thereby ensuring all other processes were working towards meeting the requirements the of the daily production schedule. The Production Manager put away his bottle of Excedrin and the CEO was overwhelmed with project’s time saving summary.
All steps matter, it’s just how you look at them.