Elting Mechanical Enterprises

Link: http://www.eltingmechanical.com

Congratulations to the winners of the Automotive X Prize. If you don't know, this was a competition to design, develop and build a vehicle to travel 100 miles on one gallon of fuel (or equivalent). For more details see their site here.

Hopefully, we all end up winners in the aftermath of this engineering contest. I sincerely hope that the gravity of this event is not lost in all the trivial matters the media focuses on, i.e. Tea Party nazis , Jersey Shore cast members, or some disgusting behavior of a Hollywood "star".

The true stars are the engineers and technicians whose efforts in improving transportation efficiencies will have a much greater impact on all our lives than the 9 billion dollar atom smasher at CERN. This event should be marked as one of the most important days in world history. We as consumers need to make it known to our favorite car manufacturers that we want better, more efficient vehicles and not just more bells and whistles.

Finding the right solution can be difficult but, even worse if one is looking for it in the wrong place.

Often clients will tell me that they have a production problem and it is all because of our "widget" machine and they want me to have a look at and see what can be done to fix it. Once I've gotten to see the widget machine in action I ask, "so, tell me what's the problem? It appears to working fine. I see that its pumping out gadgets at a pretty good rate so, what gives?" The usual reply is something like, "its working fine now, but it breaks down all the time" or, "its doesn't produce the gadget to spec but, today its doing okay" or something to that effect. Sound familiar?

At this point, I start my "investigation". I round up the usual suspects (line operators, maintenance techs, engineers) and start in with the questions. It never fails to amaze me how no matter what kind of gadget a company produces, they all suffer from the same problem when it comes to solving production issues, perception is their reality. Facts don't lie but, people do. Or at least they lie to themselves and they believe their own lies and then the lies become the "truth".

So, how do we fix their production problem. First, we start with the end in mind. Meaning, what is the target throughput of there operation. How many gadgets need to be shipped. Working "backwards" through the operation, allows me to get down to what is truly important, finding the real bottlenecks in the processes. One of the best ways to find bottlenecks is looking at the data that has already been collected. Once its been correctly analyzed, patterns can be found that usually lead to causes in lost production. The trick to this is the "correctly analyzed" part of this investigation. People have a "funny" tendency to see what they want to see or they just don't think to look at the data in a way that can help them see the real issues.

Once a client sees that the widget machine is not the real problem and its actually the gizmo machine that is truly slowing the process down, its like an "ah ha" moment. Sometimes, it just takes a bit of courage to press the client and find the real truth.

Lately my wife and I have been watching a lot of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Even if you are not a foody or into reality TV, it's still a good watch. Well, one episode Ramsay goes into this one restaurant that is dying a slow death. The menu is overly complicated, the kitchen is filthy, the order process is completely screwed up, and to top it all off, there's to much middle management and the top brass hasn't the balls (or bollox like Gordon says) to keep them in line. So, does any of this sound familiar? Ramsay has his head in his hands and is saying, "where do I begin?".

At this point my wife turns to me and says, "My god Steve, isn't that what you do?". In all honesty, it's exactly what I do. So, now my morbid curiosity has me glued to this TV show picking up "pointers" on how he handles leaders who aren't leading, managers who run around like chickens sans their heads, and workers who are complacent, unmotivated, or completely incompetent.

Tip #1 - Cleanliness

Gordan rails about this topic on almost every episode. Any one who works for a company that has embraced Lean Six Sigma practices, knows what 5S is all about. If things aren't clean and tidy, how on earth our you going to get things done efficiently. The five S's are:
Sort: Going through all the tools, etc., in a work area and keeping only essential items.

Set In Order (or Simplify): Keep the needed things in the correct place. (I can still hear my Dad saying, PUT IT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND IT! Ah, I miss him....)

Shine: Clean it until it shines....

Standardize: This is the hard one for most companies. Procedures need to be put in place so the first three get done.

Sustain: Make it a habit to get it done.