Factory Performance Management
What is Factory Performance Management?
Factory Performance management quickly becomes the backbone of your manufacturing operations. It is both the tactical decisions made, and issues dealt with on a shift by shift basis ‘what product are we making next?’ ‘do we have the right people?’ ‘did the changeover take place within the targeted time?’ to strategic decisions and interventions effecting overall factory goals - ‘Is our shift pattern right for the 2H volume?’ ‘why are we failing to meet our changeover KPIs?’ and ‘how do we prepare our factory for the next new product introduction?’
How does Factory performance Management Practically work?
On a practical level, factory performance management is a tiered series of meetings. Tier 1 is a daily shift handover meeting. Tier 2 is an on the shopfloor review of the previous day, focussing of clearing the path of issues for the next 24 to 48 hours. Tier’s 1 & 2 generally occur at manufacturing department level. Tier 3 is a daily leadership team meeting, Tier 4 is a weekly strategic value stream review, run by value stream leadership and Tier 5 is a monthly strategic performance review for the whole operation where performance of high level KPIs is reviewed and actions are agreed where a course correction is required.
Each meeting is diarised, and takes place around a KPI board. The KPIs on the board are relevant to the level of discussion being held. For example, at a Tier 1 meeting, the HSE metric reviewed might be the number of accidents (hopefully none!) on shift. At Tier 3 the leadership team will look at number of accidents for the whole site, but maybe another metric such as number of risk assessments reviewed on time. At Tier 5, again number of accidents may be reviewed for Year to Date, along with a more proactive measure such as number of near misses reported. There should be at least 1 KPI for each of the key performance dimensions - People, Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost. The data displayed should be clear and intuitive so anyone can understand current status at a glance, such as using green for on track and red for not meeting target.
Who should be Involved in a Factory Performance Review Process?
At each Tier level, ideally there will be representation from each performance dimension and local area management. This might always not be physically possible, and some level of rotation may be required if there are not enough department representatives to cover all reviews. At Tier 2 this might mean the shift lead and a planner, whilst at Tier 5 it might be the Operations Director and Supply Chain Manager. Meeting invites should clearly stipulate required attendees and whether or not in their absence a delegate is permitted. Each KPI should be updated in advance of the meeting and responsibility to do this must be clearly assigned.
The Discussion & Actions - Improving Performance
It’s very helpful to assign a facilitator to each meeting and follow a standard format. Any actions agreed should be assigned and captured on a visible action board, which includes an agreed completion date. The team should also regularly review what is, and what is not working for them, and the process can be tweaked, KPIs swapped out as time and the business moves forward.
What are the Benefits of Factory Performance Management?
A good factory performance management process reduces the need for firefighting and chasing. When it’s working well, it means there is a forum in place every day for the most important discussions - the ones that keep your factory running on a day to day basis. Everyone can see at a glance where KPIs are on track or falling behind, they know if actions have been agreed to address issues, and if so, who is responsible for completing them, by when.
It may seem daunting, but a Tiered process will actually save time in the long run. Like any new habit expect it to take discipline in the first instance to maintain, and unwavering support role modelling from leaders.
If you need help or support setting up your Factory Performance Management processes, don’t hesitate to give me a call for a no obligation chat, or check out the training section of my website for details of my half day Factory Performance Management workshop.
