Root cause and project management 1

[weyerengineer]

I am a recent IE grad. I have been asked to lead a project that involves increasing the core recovery in our veneer production process. I identified the drastic reduction in our process and as a result I was assigned to spearhead the project. first, I have determined the root cause and it seems to involve 4 major factors.
1. System -
2. Design
3. Methods
4.Human / People

i have gone ahead to determine the causal paths for this different factors and their effects on the process. My question here is that I am trying to involve some operators and shop workers in my team, what would be the most logical way to address this project. This project would increase revenue by $30,000/month. I need some advice as I am feeling very tensed about this, however I know it would be a success. please respond

 

[BillPSU]

What does core recovery mean in this project? Getting more veneer from the core or what?

Get supervisor/superior approval to talk to the people on the floor.

Getting shop people to talk about a project is going out to the floor and getting to know the people not as superior but as an equal. Talk to them and give a little history about yourself. You may not even talk about the project just observe what is happening and tell them you are learning the ropes. Ask them to tell you about the job they do. Listen and learn. Ask questions why they do things. DO NOT be judgemental. Do this with several people not only to get to know the people but to verify your information and build trust. Judge who would be the best person for the team and now ask that person if she/he wants to be on the team.

Building shop floor confidence and respect takes a time investment on your part but yields many times over in ideas and approval from the shop.

 

[PSE]

I would echo BillPSU's response (a star for you). If it is a union shop, you will likely need to include the steward or representative before being able to go directly to the workers. Getting their trust and buy in is paramount to success. Additionally, it allows you to tap into their experience and puts the operator into a frame of mind that can accept changes. If I have several ways that the same job can be accomplished, I often approach the operators and let them choose which they would prefer.

Regards and good luck.

 

[tygerdawg]

If you're searching for the root cause, then using six sigma / Design of Experiments methods can be used for this. Certainly you are approaching this problem correctly by involving the floor people since they usually know more than dumb engineers. That SS/DOE stuff is just a rigorous mathematical method of isolating where the problem lies.

Do searches for that topic, you'll find 1000's of books all claiming to be the best source. I am an advocate of the Shainin approach to SS methods and a pretty decent book on that was written by Kheki Bohte, a former Motorola SS advocate.

TygerDawg

 

[Barry1961]

If you are going to be depending on the skills of people for your operation to be a success you need to get the operators, line foreman or both to take ownership of the improvements.

The best way I have found to do this is to get their input on the design of the new process/machine. Often you can incorporate their ideas for no additional cost and it will give them the same desire to see the new process work as you have. If an operator makes a design suggestion you already decided on say “I was thinking about that too. Do you think it will work?”. This way he is taking ownership without a design change.

Leave the door open for improvements later. Hopefully you will learn from this and be able to improve the process even more next time. Make sure they know that there will probably be a next time so they are thinking about ways to make it better.

The most important thing I have saved for last. Make sure you thank them for their help while their boss is watching. This is for two reasons, it will be the truth and everyone likes a pat on the back.

Barry1961

 

[weyerengineer]

Thanx for your feedback. when I said operators I was referring to the Lathe and Deck operators. These are the people in charge of the core production, because we peel fiber logs to produce veneer (raw material for plywood) and the by products from this process are cores. My project is centered around increasing the number of cores we retrieve after peeling veneer and we have a totally lean system. Here all the waste we generate from the process are converted into chips. now when we produce a core if it is within the specs which is 3-3 1/2 inches in diameter we send them to a core rack.if we do not meet that spec then we send them to a chipper as we have customers that pay for the chips. Now we have been chipping good cores as our core system (include sensors, conveyors and core transfer) needs some upgrading. This is a very detailed process so I do not want to bore you guys but if anyone has experience within the veneer or plywood business please respond so we can talk more about this. I would welcome any advice or tips. but this is a very interesting project and i would not mind spelling it out for anyone that wishes to know more.