The key is execution: Hengjie Sanitary Ware's Lean Road

"We must do what has been decided." Liu Yingyou, the consultant of the consulting project team in the factory, said firmly, because a person in charge of the production department of the factory did not respond to an on-site improvement measure set by the consulting project team. There were disagreements over the issuance time, and the two sides clashed at the production coordination meeting that day, and the meeting came to a deadlock. Finally, with the mediation of Shen Zhongyi, the manager of the production department, the improvement measures were implemented as originally planned.

In subsequent interviews, the reporter learned that because some employees couldn't keep up with these management change projects, similar conflicts and confrontations were commonplace.

Prelude to Change: Introducing Residential Consultation

Hengjie Sanitary Ware, located in Foshan, Guangdong, has grown rapidly since its establishment in 1998 and has become a leading enterprise in the ceramic sanitary ware industry. Because of the rapid development speed, coupled with the fact that enterprises pay too much attention to sales performance and ignore internal management, the process of ceramic production plants is chaotic, production and sales are unbalanced, and the rate of excellence is low. As this negative effect becomes more and more obvious, the company's development is also restricted. . In order to curb this negative effect, the company has introduced the Oubo Enterprise Management Research Institute, which has rich consulting experience in the manufacturing industry. With the help of the factory-based consulting model, the company comprehensively promotes "management reform" including lean production.

OBO's project team has been stationed in Sanshui Plant since October 2012. In the first month, the project team conducted a detailed investigation and analysis on the operation data, financial statements, production quality reports, etc. of the Hengjie Sanitary Ware Ceramic Factory and found that the high-quality product rate of the factory's products was only 60%-70%, which was in line with the industry's advanced level. Not a small difference. Therefore, how to improve the rate of high-quality products has become the primary goal of implementing lean production changes in factories.

Because the introduced "lean production" concept is not a small impact on the concepts and habits of ordinary workers and even managers, it is inevitable that there will be resistance to implementation. "It's all a matter of habit. The workers on the production line don't understand it, and even slap the table to challenge you," Shen Zhongyi said, "because I'm the supervisor of the production department, first of all, only if I agree with why I'm doing this can I ask the next-level staff to do it. Section leaders, squad leaders, and employees, carry out this matter."

Change steps: process, planning, quality control

The improvement starts from the process process. "It turns out that the production capacity mismatch between the various processes is prone to occur. If the production capacity between the three adjacent processes is 1,000, 800, and 1,000 pieces respectively, there will be a backlog of the previous process and the waiting of the next process, resulting in waste." Shen Zhongyi For example, "After introducing OBO's 'Capacity Load Analysis', the effective capacity of each process can be evaluated, adjusted on a rolling basis, and the production capacity difference between each process can be balanced."

The core idea of lean production One is to reduce inventory. Reducing wait and waste in the production process is also a way to reduce inventory. However, due to the long cycle of the ceramic industry process, setting a certain amount of inventory in the subsequent process is an effective means to balance the capacity utilization rate of each process. "This is just-in-time production in the ceramic industry," said Hengyang, manager of the planning department of OBO.

In addition to realizing the production balance of supply and demand matching between processes, another important action for Hengjie Sanitary Ware process improvement is to formulate daily production plans, weekly plans and monthly plans, and conduct rolling inspections. The monthly plan is thrown into the workshop. Whether the plan for this month can be completed or not will be known only at the end of the month.” Shen Zhongyi said, “It is often at the end of the month that it is not fixed and there is a problem with the shipment. Now through the production day plan, weekly Planning and monthly planning, the connection between the various processes will be smooth.”

The so-called rolling inspection of production plans is to advance the production tasks of a certain day by one month, one week, three days, and two days. , One day to investigate, through the rolling action, all production abnormalities are exposed in advance, and adjustments are made accordingly, so as to quickly pull the production.

For example, "three-day rolling inspection" means that on the 1st day, the next three days 2, 3, and 4 will be included in the daily plan, and the production plan of the 2nd will be completely determined, (because Production of No. 2 is coming). On the 2nd, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th are included in the daily plan, and the plan for the 3rd is determined, and so on. In this way, every day's plan has undergone 3 checks, and its accuracy can be guaranteed.

Many manufacturing plants claim to have implemented "lean production", but often fail to accurately grasp the most basic and critical production data. The reality is often that the production workers fill in the Kanban data in a mere formality, the statisticians neglect to check, and the data obtained are full of errors and omissions. "A business owner once said to me, 'I thought my warehouse's debit card had a 98% accuracy rate, but after a real investigation, I found out that it was only 30%'," said Zeng Zihao, deputy general manager of Oubo Enterprise Management in charge of factory-based affairs. He gave an example to the reporter, "The basic data is fake, so it is impossible to find out why the actual data is so low."

In order to solve the problem of chaotic data flow, Hengjie Sanitary Ware introduced a "production process card", "starting from the first process, the production quantity and loss of each link are recorded until the last process. The production process The accuracy of the data comes from here." Shen Zhongyi introduced. With the accurate data updated every day, in the daily production coordination meeting held by the heads of each production department, the production plan of the previous day can be summarized, and the production plan of the next few days can be updated rollingly, so as to Achieve on-time and efficient production.

Achieving lean production requires not only improving the operation of existing processes, but also optimizing the process itself when necessary. As a traditional manufacturing industry with a long history, the ceramic industry has a relatively mature process. However, with the advancement of technology and the higher requirements of workers on the working environment, the "washing and reforming" in the process has become the focus of urgent improvement. The original "dry cleaning" dust is flying all over the sky, and workers are very susceptible to respiratory diseases. Using the new process and changing it to "wet cleaning" completely avoids this risk. "Not only cleaner production, but also energy saving and consumption reduction," Shen Zhongyi calculated for the reporter, "It turns out that each worker needs to be equipped with a high-power dust exhaust fan, with a total energy consumption of about 70 kilowatts. • hours; after the change, there are only two 2.5 kW fans, and the energy consumption is reduced to 5 kW• hours."

In the flow chart of Hengjie Sanitary Ware, three inspections and random inspections were originally set up. To ensure product quality, it seems that the quality control is strict, but in actual operation, the content of each inspection position is often repeated, the division of labor is unclear, and it is easy to blame each other for problems. "Shen Zhongyi said. In response to this problem, Hengjie decided to combine the three inspections into one inspection, that is, the three inspection positions (three people) that were originally connected in series were adjusted to the same person responsible for the three inspection processes, and each person was responsible for each person from the delivery of the blank to the change. The quality inspection and review of each process before washing and then glaze spraying, "This way not only can the responsibility be placed on the person, the inspection quality is guaranteed, but the work efficiency and enthusiasm of the personnel are also improved." (see Figure 1)

Another important action for quality control and improvement is to use back-end data analysis to drive front-end quality improvement. "Our data is getting more and more refined. For example, how much does a rust spot account for in the entire loss, and the rust spot can be divided into large pieces and small pieces, and on each piece can be divided into glaze, glaze Neutralize the underglaze, and then lock it to the job number and model. Based on these analyses, targeted improvements can be made to the front-end process." Liu Yingyou explained. (See Figure 2)

Under the joint action of several specific actions, the production efficiency and quality of Hengjie Sanitary Ware has been significantly improved. According to statistics, after 6 months of reform, the rate of superior products has increased from 66% to 80%, and the rework rate has also dropped from 25% to 4.3%.

The key to change: execution is better than idea

For Chinese manufacturing enterprises, there is no shortage of the theory of implementing lean production, but what is often lacking is continuous implementation and execution. "Many companies have received various trainings and are not lacking in lean production knowledge. But often they just say, not do, or don't really do it." Zeng Zihao commented. Before the Oubo enterprise management project team settled in, Hengjie Sanitary Ware also implemented similar reform measures in process improvement and reengineering, quality control and promotion, but according to Shen Zhongyi, the production manager, "the effect is easy to repeat, and the fire in the east is extinguished. The fire on the west side is on again.” Many measures of lean production cannot be cured.

After the introduction of the resident project team, Hengjie Sanitary Ware, from the top management to the grassroots employees, are required to participate in the management reform aimed at realizing lean production Zhonglai: The production director in charge of the overall production of the company led all the employees to take their vows, and even the most grassroots cleaners were invited to have a discussion with the project team. These works are all to first form a "change" atmosphere, so that the specific actions of "change" can be implemented on everyone. Although lean production focuses on "things", the ultimate focus is still "people", emphasizing the full participation of employees.

After going through the previous "swearing-in mobilization", the introduction of the "horizontal control method" in process management is one of the important ways to mobilize the enthusiasm of employees and let each employee participate in the transformation of lean production management. , that is, "full participation", between departments, between posts, between processes and processes, as long as they do not conform to the standard actions, they can hold horizontal accountability to adjacent departments, posts, and processes, and open Make a donation. This incentive mechanism makes each production unit have a sense of cost and quality control, and becomes a "stem cell" that can "self-hematopoieize" for the production efficiency and quality improvement of the enterprise.

In addition to the self-inspection mechanism of horizontal accountability, the reform project team also established "action control cards" for different positions and processes, and set up a special audit office. Carry out verification, and promote the implementation and solidification of process actions from the outside.

The implementation and popularization of the concept cannot be achieved overnight by the "hard system", but also need to rely on the subtle influence and good inducement of the "soft culture". To this end, the project team has set up a cultural publicity gallery, released the latest information on changes, and promoted the active participation of individuals and departments as role models; broadcast promotional videos about lean production processes in canteens, office areas and other places.... .. In addition, according to Hengyang, in all production processes, regular on-site case training, efficiency PK, quality competition and other activities are often held to mobilize the enthusiasm of employees.

"It wasn't easy at the beginning, many people didn't understand why it was so troublesome, and quarrels were common," Hengyang said of his consulting career in the factory, "We even encountered pressure from employees in other factories. Anxious about the incident of using a knife holder on the neck of the project team consultant. Therefore, we often first find the node that needs to be improved most in production, and through rapid research, a breakthrough will be formed in a short period of time, thereby establishing prestige and gaining everyone's recognition and support for management change , and finally achieve the goal of tackling key problems.”

The lean production road of Hengjie Sanitary Ware is hand in hand with Obo’s factory-based consulting, and its biggest advantage lies in every action of lean production management reform, All consultants and enterprise personnel cooperate with each other to ensure that it is implemented and solidified. For many manufacturing companies, the key is not to introduce more advanced lean production theory, but to standardize every operation of employees, improve every small link in the process, and use "second-class methods and first-class execution." , combined with the enterprise situation, to achieve lean production.